Creamy nettle soup

Name: Creamy nettle soup
Yield: Serves 4
Ingredients: About 500 g nettle tops, leaves only; 4 shallots or spring onions, finely chopped; Salt and freshly ground pepper; Salt and freshly ground pepper; 100 ml single cream; 750 ml chicken or vegetable stock, or plain water; 750 ml chicken or vegetable stock, or plain water; 750 ml chicken or vegetable stock, or plain water; 1 large potato, peeled and diced; 25 g unsalted butter; 4 shallots or spring onions, finely chopped

Preparation info

Serves
4

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

A Cook’s Year in a Welsh Farmhouse

By Elisabeth Luard

Published 2011

About

Choose a nice clean patch of nettles and, wearing gloves, snip off the tender young leaves. Nettles taste like spinach, though the colour is darker and the flavour a little more minerally. Don’t worry about the sting – it cooks out. If you’re short on nettles, make up the shortfall with spinach.

Ingredients

About 500 g nettle tops, leaves only
4 shallots or spring onions, finely chopped
25

Gluten-free
Soup

Method

Rinse the nettle leaves and shake them dry.

Cook the shallots gently in the butter until they soften. Add the leaves and turn them over the heat till they wilt.

Add the diced potato and stock. Bring to the boil, season, lid loosely and cook for 15–20 minutes, until the potato is perfectly soft.

Tip everything into a liquidiser and process to a smooth purée. Reserve a lad