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market-farming - Re: [Market-farming] Stinging Nettle

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  • From: Richard Moyer <ramoyer AT gmail.com>
  • To: market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Stinging Nettle
  • Date: Wed, 14 Jul 2010 13:30:32 -0400

Laurie asked:
"I did have one follow up question. Do you all make stinging nettle
soup? If so, do you use the stems at all, or just leaves? And for
the soup, do you need the softer, younger plant tops/leaves, or will
the older leaves work as well when cooked down?"

"I know for sure a couple of the interested chefs do soup only with
nettles, that's why I ask. All the recipes I find say so and so
pounds of nettles, which I assume are just the leaves, but in reality
I have no clue. They also all seem to want to puree the cooked
combined ingredients at some point."

Laurie,
I don't recall making soup. We steam the entire tops of the plants or
boil briefly. As earlier, it takes much more time to harvest
individual leaves than tops of young plants, so we have never done
single leaves. In the spring the tops are very tender, plant stems
indistinguishable from the equally tender leaves.
In our experience, as the plants mature, if a stray older plant top
makes it in the pot, the cooked product becomes like eating steamed
spinach with occasional pine straw thrown in. the 'pinestraw' in this
case being the tough plant stem, leaf stems and leaf central midribs.
So we don't eat any this time of year, past late spring here in SW VA.

I don't know if pureeing cooked leaves this time of year for a soup
will make an acceptable product. Hence my advice of cooking a sample,
then pureeing, to make your own soup. I'd be leery of the fibers, as
the plant has been lignifying (getting tough), in order to stand erect
for blooming and spreading seed. If you don't want to cook it, give a
sample of leaves without stems to a trusted chef and ask if it works
for them, letting them know the season for tender leaves may be over.
That leaves the door open for supplying them next spring.

Richard Moyer
Out to train more tomato plants




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