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Does anyone here eat nettles?

  • 06-04-2020 11:29am
    #1
    Yester
    Registered Users Posts: 1,496 ✭✭✭


    I've heard they are very good for you and am eager to give them a go. I was just wondering about a couple of things.

    When is the best time to pick them? There is a fresh crop of small nettles starting to grow beside my fence. Is now the time to eat them or should I let them grow a bit more?

    I will be wearing gloves when picking and washing them. Are they safe to handle after washing or can you still be burned.

    I was thinking of stir frying them like I would with spinach. is this a good way to cook them or do I need to boil them first?

    Any words of wisdom or recipe suggestions would be welcome.


Comments

  • #2
    Alun
    Registered Users Posts: 21,417 ✭✭✭✭Alun


    Never eaten them myself, but I seem to remember it was best to pick them when they're young, not only because the sting is supposedly much less then, but also that they're more tender and get a bit stringy when older.


  • #3
    Seamai
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,250 ✭✭✭Seamai


    Yester wrote: »
    I've heard they are very good for you and am eager to give them a go. I was just wondering about a couple of things.

    When is the best time to pick them? There is a fresh crop of small nettles starting to grow beside my fence. Is now the time to eat them or should I let them grow a bit more?

    I will be wearing gloves when picking and washing them. Are they safe to handle after washing or can you still be burned.

    I was thinking of stir frying them like I would with spinach. is this a good way to cook them or do I need to boil them first?

    Any words of wisdom or recipe suggestions would be welcome.

    I made nettle, potato and bacon soup a few years ago and I have to say it was vile, think of the strong taste of iron you get from older spinach and multiply it by 10. I only picked the top youngest leaves from the plants (AFAIK this is what is recommended). After a few spoons we chucked it out. Even my partner who will eat any old crap and think it was fine said his curiosity was satisfied and never wanted to taste nettles again.


  • #4
    Yester
    Registered Users Posts: 1,496 ✭✭✭Yester


    Seamai wrote: »
    I made nettle, potato and bacon soup a few years ago and I have to say it was vile, think of the strong taste of iron you get from older spinach and multiply it by 10. I only picked the top youngest leaves from the plants (AFAIK this is what is recommended). After a few spoons we chucked it out. Even my partner who will eat any old crap and think it was fine said his curiosity was satisfied and never wanted to taste nettles again.

    That's gas. I defiantly have to try them now. I'll give it a go in the next couple of days and report back. My expectations have been lowered considerably.


  • #5
    Seamai
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,250 ✭✭✭Seamai


    Yester wrote: »
    That's gas. I defiantly have to try them now. I'll give it a go in the next couple of days and report back. My expectations have been lowered considerably.

    I'd be curious to know how you get on. I wonder if maybe the taste varied depending on where the were growing but I'm not curious enough to repeat the exercise.


  • #6
    Gloomtastic!
    Registered Users Posts: 8,297 ✭✭✭Gloomtastic!


    I made a wild garlic pesto a few weeks ago and the recipe also mentioned using nettles. They said to blanch them for 5 minutes or so before blitzing. That might take the irony taste out. And a load of garlic in the pesto would disguise that further.


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  • #7
    riffmongous
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 12,617 Mod ✭✭✭✭riffmongous


    I do sometimes. Yeah you should pick the newest leaves, up until the plant flowers. Same as any plant really, after they flower the leaves get bitter.

    They will still sting after washing, you need to briefly boil or blanch them to remove the sting. I either make a pesto, or just keep frying them a bit longer. The taste should be like spinach.. it's ok but nothing special tbh


  • #8
    the beer revolu
    Registered Users Posts: 16,737 ✭✭✭✭the beer revolu


    Make nettle soup every year.
    A nice light chicken stock as a base.
    Onion, celery, leek and potato. Lots of nettles.
    Usually add plenty of chives, wild garlic and wild leeks, too.
    Love it.

    Also put it in lasagne.

    Pick young. Uppermost leaves.

    Will sting until cooked.


  • #9
    JohnnyFlash
    Registered Users Posts: 7,055 ✭✭✭JohnnyFlash


    Gloomtastic! wrote: »
    I made a wild garlic pesto a few weeks ago and the recipe also mentioned using nettles. They said to blanch them for 5 minutes or so before blitzing. That might take the irony taste out. And a load of garlic in the pesto would disguise that further.

    I made nettle pesto a few years back. It tastes very ‘fresh’, and I found it worked best when paired with oily fish. I’m not sure I’d go to the bother again. It wasn’t unpleasant, but not a patch on wild garlic pesto.


  • #10
    Seve OB
    Registered Users Posts: 15,819 ✭✭✭✭Seve OB


    Picked up some nettle tea once.
    Vile


  • #11
    PARlance
    Registered Users Posts: 21,091 ✭✭✭✭PARlance


    A local chef/restaurant owner's daughter made wild nettle pesto!

    I'm not sure I would be putting my own kids up on Facebook but she is turning out to be a little star. Video from her Facebook page.

    https://www.facebook.com/111075687201875/posts/116494379993339/


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  • #12
    krissovo
    Registered Users Posts: 2,645 ✭✭✭krissovo


    I got into nettles when I served in the military and they were one of foods we foraged on a survival course to make tea and for food. Shallow fried nettles and earthworms with wild garlic was surprisingly palatable. Crack a egg into it and it takes it to another level. I do not get the Iron earthy taste that some do.

    Nettles fried in butter with salt and wild garlic on its own are good, again crack a egg or two into the pan and you have a tasty lunch. You can blanch them quickly before but it takes some of the flavor and the nutrients. We also like nettle and sweetcorn fritters, nettle pesto, nettle chili dip. I do a chimichurri steak sauce with nettles & coriander and that is amazing.


  • #13
    phormium
    Registered Users Posts: 3,288 ✭✭✭phormium


    Nettles and Bovril remind me of my youth! My mother thought we should drink Bovril as it was good for us, the smell transports me back again to sitting in the back of the class having lunch in primary school, I hated the stuff!

    She also used to cook nettles for us, never liked them but then again I don't like spinach either and to me they are something similar texture anyway when cooked.


  • #14
    McMurphy
    Registered Users Posts: 13,365 ✭✭✭✭McMurphy


    Showing my age here but I definitely remember nettle flavour crisps when I was at school, can't remember the name of the manufacturer now, but I think it was the same company that used to do burger bites or something similarly sounding.

    By the way, yes the crisps were rank and no wonder they don't sell them anymore.


    Edit after a bit of googling it seems it was a "Barry McGuigan" brand of crisps, and my memory of them is now becoming clearer, they were minging though.


  • #15
    rubadub
    Registered Users Posts: 32,373 ✭✭✭✭rubadub


    McMurphy wrote: »
    Edit after a bit of googling it seems it was a "Barry McGuigan" brand of crisps, and my memory of them is now becoming clearer, they were minging though.
    remember the brand, but not nettles.

    The face on the packet was not looking like a fighter

    BGYiG8GCEAEKlJ6.jpg

    dunno what the word for the look is but reminds me of Robert Sheehan when he was in Misfits a look of sarcasm or something.

    DYVVC0pWkAEA1aq.jpg


  • #16
    Dave_The_Sheep
    Registered Users Posts: 7,328 ✭✭✭Dave_The_Sheep


    Only as a soup when I was a young lad.


  • #17
    Yester
    Registered Users Posts: 1,496 ✭✭✭Yester


    Well, we had a feed of nettles for dinner last night. I picked a big pot of them and they shrunk considerably when boiled. I boiled them for 2-3 minutes, tasting them until they seemed done. Then I took out half and stir fried them with garlic and rice. The second half I mashed with potatoes and butter.

    I would say they had a consistency that was somewhere between spinach and kale when cooked. I was very aware of warnings that they would have a very strong iron taste but this was not the case, maybe because they were all young nettles? About half way through eating I started to become aware of, what I assume was the taste of iron but it was in no way overwhelming or off putting.

    So the verdict would be that they were fine taste wise. It's a bit of hassle picking and washing them so I wouldn't be in a rush to do it again. If they had amazing health benefits then I would. It was worth it for the novelty of it and generated a good bit of interest, especially amongst older folk who heard we were doing it.


  • #18
    Seamai
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,250 ✭✭✭Seamai


    Moving slightly off topic, nettles soaked in water for several weeks makes a great natural liquid fertiliser


  • #19
    the beer revolu
    Registered Users Posts: 16,737 ✭✭✭✭the beer revolu


    Seamai wrote: »
    Moving slightly off topic, nettles soaked in water for several weeks makes a great natural liquid fertiliser

    Yes but, man, does it stink!

    I've chicken stock made.
    Going to make a ragu today.

    Now, I need to find nettles within 2k and make nettle soup and nettle lasagne.


  • #20
    Seamai
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,250 ✭✭✭Seamai


    the beer revolu wrote: »
    Yes but, man, does it stink!

    I've chicken stock made.
    Going to make a ragu today.

    Now, I need to find nettles within 2k and make nettle soup and nettle lasagne.

    Forgot to mention that, yeah, it's putrid.


  • #21
    KevRossi
    Registered Users Posts: 4,375 ✭✭✭KevRossi


    The strong iron taste can come from incorrectly harvesting them.

    As said above, do not pick them once they flower.

    Only rip off the tip of the leaf. Wear a pair of gloves, grasp the tip of the nettle and rip it off, at max about 1/3 of the average leaf.

    Blanch them for about 3 mins in boiling water. Then use as you wish.

    I tend to make a pesto with them, sometimes throwing in wild garlic and freeze the lot. It freezes well, you can also make large batches of soup. I've done this and eaten it 3 months later, but usually have the soup mixed with other veg.


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  • #22
    the beer revolu
    Registered Users Posts: 16,737 ✭✭✭✭the beer revolu


    Picked up a big bag of nettle tops.
    Wild leek too.


    I see green soup in my future.


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