Stinging Nettle Soup
Recipe by S.F. Keough
People in Sweden eat this in the spring with a hard-boiled egg and some nice bread. I also enjoy this soup with crushed up potato chips on top.
Ingredients
- 6 cups of stinging nettles
- 2T butter
- 2T flour
- 6 cups of chicken stock
- Chopped chives
- Salt and Pepper to taste
Optional: Hard-boiled egg
Directions
- If you’re foraging, fill a grocery bag full of nettles. If not, I’d say 6-8 cups will do. Handle these with care as they do sting. Put some gloves on and get your nettles into the sink and let them soak in water for a few minutes. Shake them around and get as much of the dirt and rocks out of them as you can.
- Get a big pot of water onto the stove and boil your nettles for 5 minutes. Remove them and let them cool while reserving two cups of your cooking water. As your nettles are cooling, press them a bit to get more water out.
- Melt the butter in a pot on low heat, add the flour and make a roux, string constantly for 3 minutes. Whisk in the nettle water and the stock until smooth.
- Finely chop your cooked nettles and add them in. Then salt and pepper to taste and garnish with the chives.