Food

Nettles are pretty much the first thing in every wild food or survival book I've found, and I've been waiting for a chance to try them. Apparently they're not worth eating once they grow out properly in summertime (they become very coarse), and the very best nettles (according to every authority) are the new young plants which have just grown a couple of inches from the ground.

So you can imagine my delight when I saw acres of the things as I was out walking the other day. My delight was slightly tempered when I realised that I'd forgotten to bring any gloves. I (briefly) toyed with exhibiting my masculinity by picking them barehanded, then improvised with a thick cloth. Unfortunately this made the picking a rather imprecise science...

	...which is why my glorious nettle harvest looked like this. Mmm...rural.
		Not making the same bloody mistake again. You know, black leather is a tragically underused material in the kitchen...
	After about 15 minutes the nettles are mostly sorted out from the grass, dead leaves and other assorted flora, and rinsed in a colander.
		Can't decide what way to cook them. Ray Mears will know what to do.
	Ray says "Boil them in a bit of water, add butter". This sounds suspiciously easy.
		Simmering the nettles. Another book actually says "Boil them in just the water which clings to them after washing", and that turned out to be pretty good advice. Please ignore the disgusting state of my stove top, incidentally.
	The finished product - I know, doesn't look immediately appetising. I've seen them cooked down to a green slurry, but I wanted mine a bit more al dente. And with a bit of butter and a quick grind of salt...they were delicious! Not crisp exactly but firm, and the flavour was like cabbage but with no bitterness at all, just sweet and fresh-tasting.

I could honestly see eating a lot of these, and they are absolutely everywhere - I think I'll be taking my gloves with me on walks, at least until summer comes around. It's nice to have already found a wild food that's a pleasure to eat - now I just need to expand my repertoire and I'll be living off woodland forage in no time.

Labels: Cook, foraging, nettles, Ray Mears, wild food