Foraging For Stinging Nettles
Previously we've foraged for wild garlic locally, but that's as adventurous as we have got. Over the last few months we've been reading up more on foraging in general, and trying to use more of what we have around us. The obvious next thing to pick and use was stinging nettles. We have an abundance of these around the garden and they are available just about anywhere in the countryside.
From the books we've read, the consistent advice is to only eat and make tea with the younger plants that have not flowered or gone to seed. Also don't eat them raw, do make sure you cook them.
Stinging nettles are rich in vitamins and minerals, apparently they contain Vitamins A, B, C and K, calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, sodium and a whole bunch of essential amino acids. Along with all this, they also works as a cleanser, antioxidant, and it's also a diuretic.
Cutting and Drying for Nettle Tea
We cut the tops off of some of the smaller, more healthy looking nettles, the ones that were green and looked fresher. We rinsed them down, and tied them in a few bunches and hung them up in the greenhouse.
As the weather has been so much warmer, they only took a few days to dry out until they were crispy dry.
Once dried, we picked the leaves (while wearing gloves, just incase), put them into the jar and once it was nearly full we used some scissors to chop them up. This seemed to work rather well.
We used a teaspoon of dried leaves per cup, added hot water, and let them steep for 3 minutes. Strained into cups and added a squeeze of lemon.
This was surprisingly tasty and reminded us a lot of green tea.
Fresh Wilted Nettles with Garlic and Hazelnuts
We picked these fresh, obviously wearing gloves. Washing and roughly cutting them to put in the pan was a challenge without getting stung!
Here’s the recipe, it’s very simple:
Fresh Nettles (washed)
Hazelnuts (or almonds would work well)
2 Garlic cloves, finely chopped
A large splash of liquid aminos (or soy sauce)
Fry off the garlic and hazelnuts first with a splash of water (we try to avoid using oil), then add the nettles and liquid aminos and cook on a low heat until the nettles have wilted.
This was also surprisingly delicious, and just as tasty as spinach. Although the kids said it was a bit tougher, and a bit hairy!
Love them or hate them one thing you can't deny is that they are abundant (especially in spring) and free.