March 27, 2019 - Nettle is one of the healthiest wild plants. It is used primarily as a tea for cleansing the body and strengthening the blood, but from it, like many other types of green vegetables, you can prepare a variety of dishes. In this issue of TMN Gourmet, we bring you a recipe for nettle soup; a simple dish which you will need only half an hour to prepare, and in turn, you will serve a perfectly balanced meal, rich in vitamins, minerals, proteins and charcoal hydrates. Because of its high iron content, it is used primarily for the treatment of anaemia, but its effect is beneficial to the complete organism.
You will find it in every better-stocked fresh food vendor, as well as in most fresh food markets in Montenegro. I do not buy nettle. The reason is to know where it is picked because this plant likes to grow in different places, even next to dirt roads. So I choose to collect in on my own, of course, not with bare hands. For picking and later washing the plant, we need high-quality rubber gloves. It is crucial that the young nettle is not more than twenty centimetres high and that there are "bouquets" of young leaves on the tops. I prefer these bouquets because I do not need to clean them afterwards. If you already pick nettle, you can freely pick up a larger quantity of the one you need to prepare a soup, because you can put the rest in the freezer, and cook it later. Confirmed, after two months in the fridge, nettle does not lose its taste. And it probably preserves nutritional value.
How to prepare Nettle Soup?
Ingredients:
One large potato
One tie of young onions
100 g finely chopped dry bacon
150-200 g nettle leaves
1-2 tablespoons of olive oil
1 l water,
Pepper and Salt
Preparation:
Clean the potato, wash and cut into small cubes. Wash the onions and the nettle. Cut the young onions into tiny circles, retaining only a part of the green leaves, and remove the nettle leaves from the stems.
Slowly pour olive oil in a deep pan and add the onion, finely chopped bacon and potato cubes. Add the nettle leaves and, five minutes later, cover all by one litre of water. Add salt and pepper and cook for about half an hour. In the end, add, if desired, some parsley or celery leaf. You can serve this soup with sour cream and bread.
