A couple of friends on facebook have recently been showing off their foraging skills, and I see that there is wild garlic fans here. It reminded me of this wonderful recipe. Now you’d be forgiven for thinking this doesn’t sound like a Sam recipe; it’s too green, it’s a soup and where the hell are the chillies? And you’d be right! This is a recipe that my friend Sally and I used to cook together after our morning strolls for coffee. At the time, I didn’t even realise nettles were edible. Over time it’s developed little by little into this simple and quick recipe. At the time of writing, (end of March), it’s now the perfect time to be foraging for these in the wild (London counts), use your one hour of government sanctioned exercise to wonder off the beaten path and explore. Oh, and Wash your hands.
To really level up you can add in some tinned chickpeas with the potatoes to make it even creamier and plonk in some large bits of tangerine peel when serving. Something about the citrus enzyme really does it for me. Strangely orange peel doesn’t work. You could also leave out the single cream if you use the chickpeas and go vegan.
Ingredients (Serves 2-3)
A carrier bag of stingy nettles, now is the best time for it!
A bunch of wild garlic, it’s in season now too!
6 Potatoes
1 Medium Onion
A handful of crushed pistachios (optional)
1ltr of veg stock/oxo
1 small pot of single cream (optional but makes it creamier)
½ tsp Salt
½ tsp of Paprika
1 tsp Black Pepper
A glug of veg oil
Instructions (Feeds 2-3)
Put some gloves on and rinse and drain the stinging (stingy?) nettles and the wild garlic, keep them separate for now.
Chop the stalks off the wild garlic and dice them up. Remove the stems from the nettles and throw them away.
Dice up the onions and garlic stalks (I’m assuming there’s no bulbs, but if there is peel and add them in).
Add a glug of veg oil to a saucepan on a medium heat and once hot add in the onions and the garlic stems to soften and taper down the garlic, it smells stronger than it is.
Boil up your kettle and make the oxo cube into a litre of water.
Cube up the potatoes, and just as the onions are starting to caramelise, add them into the pot along with the veg stock and bring to a simmer.
Chop up the garlic leaves.
Once the potatoes are soft, whack up the heat up and add in the nettles bit by bit, they will cook down sort of like how spinach does. When there’s space in the pot add in the wild garlic leaves.
When it’s all cooked down, turn the heat right down, and blend with a hand blender til smooth.
Add in the pot of cream, the salt, pepper, and paprika and blend again.
Leave to simmer and thicken up on a low heat for a couple of minutes while you crush up some pistachios.
Add to a bowl, sprinkle the pistachios on top and serve with some nice buttered bread.
Admire the colour and taste the spring.
