The green soup

There is a lot of free food around this time of the year, and some of the weeds are among the best. And healthiest. Nettle soup is one of my favorites, with or without other species of weeds. The nettles just started to grow where I live, that means they are absolutely best for food now. I use gloves of course when I pick them, it is for a reason they are given the name stinging nettles, and i just pick the top of the plants.

There are many recipes around. My advice is to keep it simple, and the recipe I use is about like this:

200 g nettles already cleaned and blanched

1 small onion

1 spoon of butter

1 spoon of flour

1 liter broth

1/4 teaspoon white pepper

salt if necessary

1 dl cream

I rinse the nettles in cold water before I blanche them, that is, I just put them in boiling water for a minute or two. This water I throw away. Chop the nettles, and the onion, and fry this lightly for 2-3 minutes. Sprinkle with flour and stir. Gradually add hot broth, and then boil the soup gently for 5 minutes. Add pepper, and salt if necessary, and then the cream. At the end I use a hand stick mixer for the perfect smoothness, but this is not necessary. And I often serve with slices of boiled egg.

The nettles in the picture above are too old to be used for my taste. The spring nettles are the best, but one trick is to cut the old ones, and get some fresh ones growing. The benefits of nettles are well known, and they have a lot of vitamins, antioxydants and medicinal qualities. But on top of that, the taste is really excellent, believe it or not. Other plants I often use is wild ground elder, and chives from the garden.

One very important advice: never pick any plant for eating if you are not 100 percent sure of what species they are. If you are uncertain, leave them, or bring them to somebody who knows. Because there are also plants that are lethal. Also just pick plants you know are clean and not contaminated. Here is a link to some more photos of edible plants.