 |
Photo by Holly A. Heyser
I am longing for the green of spring. It is an itch I need to scratch. Bad. And yes, I realize that as a resident of Northern California I ought to be the last person whining about winter, but I cannot help it. It’s not the weather so much as it’s that I need a break from heavy stews and braises, at least for now. And because I do live in NorCal, I can scratch my itch even in February.
We’ve had a warm, dry winter. Every little bit of rain we get is welcomed. This year we all have reverse seasonal affective disorder: When it’s gloomy and rainy, we’re happy. It means we get to drink water this summer. So far in this La Niña year, we’ve just barely received enough rain to get things going. Our hillsides are a blotchy green, like moldy bread. By this time of year they should look like emerald suede.
Like this soup. Anyone who knows me knows that I am in love with smooth soups. Elise and I have made lots of them over at Simply Recipes, and one of our favorites is my Provencal fish soup. Last weekend I’d thawed some of the leopard shark Holly and I had caught last summer to make this soup when my friend Josh suggested we go out collecting nettles.
Photo by H. Zell courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Green things! I was on it in a heartbeat. So yesterday we went to a farm in the Delta where dwarf nettles grow as a weed; Josh has permission to forage there. Dwarf nettles, Urtica urens, don’t have nearly as nasty a sting as Urtica dioica, which is the standard stinging nettle. These are more dainty, more civilized. But dwarf nettles, at least in this part of the world, have one problem: a very faint fishy aroma.
This aroma is easy to mask in normal cooking, but I will often pair fish with dwarf nettles anyway — go with the flow, right? An idea for a dish that would combining the nettles with the shark began percolating in my head…
The easiest way to pick dwarf nettles is to wear heavy garden gloves. Grab the top 4-8 inches of the plant, twist and yank off the tops. Josh is more methodical, snipping everything down to a part of the stem that has a little red on it; Once you get to that part of the stem, the nettle is too fibrous. Toss the nettles into a paper grocery bag and you’re good to go.
I’ve written a lot about processing and cooking nettles, so I will direct you to that post if you have questions.
I was so happy with my nettle haul that I posted it on my Twitter page. And within seconds — this is why I love Twitter so much — I had people giving me suggestions on what to do with them. I just made nettle pasta, and I’ve made nettle pesto and a whole bunch of other things, but the one standard nettle recipe I’ve yet to make is the one everybody makes: nettle soup. I think I’ve avoided it all this time precisely because everyone else does it. If I were to do a nettle soup, it would have to be something different.
That’s when Rochelle in San Francisco reminisced about a Swedish nettle soup she’d had. I am on a Northern European kick lately, so my ears perked up. A quick Google search came up with recipes for nässelsoppa – and one was written by my friend Heather! Game on.
In the end I decided to combine the technique of the Provencal smooth soup with the flavors of the nässelsoppa. It was exactly what I needed. You cannot get any greener than this soup, and the flavor was warm, smooth and alive — bright, clean and briny. A perfect herald of spring.
Photo by Holly A. Heyser
Scandinavian nettle and fish soup
This is a mashup between a traditional Swedish nettle soup and a smooth French-style fish bisque. Any lean, white fish works here — even (gulp!) tilapia, although I hate the idea of recommending tilapia for anything. I used some leopard shark we’d caught and frozen and it worked fine. I’d say pollock or haddock or walleye would be ideal. Don’t use an oily fish here.
If you don’t have access to nettles, use a mix of parsley and spinach for a similar effect; I’d go 50-50. The greenery must be blanched before you use it in this soup. You can buy frozen, cooked spinach, but you’ll need to blanch parsley for 1 minute in salty, boiling water before shocking it in an ice bath. Nettles need anywhere from 30-90 seconds in the boiling water.
Don’t be tempted to use fish broth for this soup. You want the fishy flavor to be subtle. I used homemade pheasant broth for my soup, but I would recommend chicken or vegetable broth.
Finally, you don’t have to strain the soup after pureeing it. I do because I like refined soups. But it will be fine to eat right out of the blender.
Serves 4-6.
Prep Time: 5 minutes, not including blanching time
Cook Time: 30 minutes, including blending time
- 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 1 cup chopped white onion
- 1 garlic clove, minced
- 1 quart chicken or vegetable stock
- 1 teaspoon dried thyme
- 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg, preferably freshly grated
- Salt to taste
- 1 pound lean, white fish (cod, bass, tilapia, shark, walleye, etc), chopped roughly
- 1 pound chopped, blanched nettles (or parsley and spinach)
- Sour cream and black pepper for garnish
___________
- Cook the onions in the butter over medium heat until they are soft and translucent. Add the garlic and cook another minute.
- Pour in the stock and add the thyme, nutmeg, salt, fish and nettles. Bring this to a gentle simmer and cook for 15-20 minutes. You want the nettles to be very tender.
- When the nettles are ready, taste the soup and add salt and nutmeg if it needs it. You want to be able to pick up the nutmeg in the final dish.
- Puree the soup in a blender. You might need to do this in batches. If you want to get fancy, push the puree through a fine-meshed strainer. Put back on the stove just to warm through. Serve with a dollop of sour cream and some black pepper.
More Nettle Recipes
More Fish Recipes
Photo by Holly A. Heyser
My mother-in-law makes nässelsoppa every spring and I really look forward to it. There is a patch of nettles in the woods behind their home along the Swedish coastline and she has found that if she cuts them back she gets a second growth suitable for soup making. Mmmmmm. She always cuts a hard boiled egg in half and sets it in the top of the soup. I love the stuff. I’m hoping to post about it when the nettles arrive, but alas, I have about 3 months to wait.
I am gonna have to try that!
The nettles here in central MS are up but they are purple-ish right now, so I’m not so sure it would be as beautiful as the bowl you have there.
That’s purty! I’ll be making a version of this for my family and also for a Swedish friend. I think I’ll use the lingcod I caught last year.
Also, I’m going to add nettles to a pheasant soup I cooked down and froze. The pheasant is from that same field.
Nettle soup? hmmmmmmmm. The color alone has me swooning in delight… almost. I can’t get past the idea of ingesting nettles… voluntarily. Are these pesky plants less irritating as youngsters in Spring?
Wonderful color! Had no idea nettles were edible. Thanks for sharing!
Wow, what a color! It’s worth trying the recipe just for that alone…
[...] am going to have a go at cooking this soup, this pesto and this quiche. I am also going to dry some for tea. Share [...]