The nettle experiment

The first time I had nettles I was 17 and on a school trip to Wiltshire and I was staying in a reconstructed Iron Age roundhouse (it looked like the tellytubby house). One of my abiding memories of the night other than being freezing cold (it was March) was trying nettles for the first time and quite liking them.

Nettles are one of the new super food fads but not without reason; nettles are full of the vegetarian trinity of iron, protein and vitamin C. They behave rather like spinach when cooked.  I would not recommend eating them raw as they tend to be a little bit...stingy.

I got the nettles from the park over the road but they are available at every good area of wasteland, motorway verges and some gardens. I wore thick gloves and my red rain coat (because I wasn’t conspicuous enough). I got some funny looks, but quite frankly I have got beyond caring about stuff like that. You only want to pick the top few rows of leaves as they are the tenderest.

So without further ado let’s get on with the experiment….

Ingredients

Nettles

Salt

Water

Method

In a colander I rinsed the nettles very well. I found out at this point that some nettles can still sting after  being picked, so keep the gloves on till the nettles are cooked.

Put water on to the boil and add a good amount of salt

 

Put the nettles into the pan then let them boil for a few minutes  

 

Drain well and put into cold water to preserve the colour.

Dry with a paper towel. The nettles absorb a lot of water so be prepared for this.

 

Result

The nettles were quite bland as I may have over boiled them, so I fried then up with lots of butter, garlic, salt and pepper. It was really quite tasty as it absorbed all of the butter . I think nettles may be very good in the place of spinach in dishes such as chilli or as a side to something strong flavoured.