By Chef Oliver Kienast, Wild Mountain Food and Drink
By Chef Oliver Kienast, Wild Mountain Food and Drink
1 litre homemade vegetable or poultry broth
2 large onions
2 cloves garlic
1 fresh bay leaf
2 medium Yukon gold potatoes
1/2 cup chopped parsley
1-2 cups blanched nettle tops
2 tablespoons good oil
2 tablespoons white wine
Sweat onions in oil, then add garlic.
After a few minutes, add wine to cool down.
Add peeled and sliced potato.
Add stock and bay leaf.
Blanch nettles tops in salty water.
Blend the nettles separately from the soup (all other ingredients).
You may need to use some cold stock to help the nettles blend.
Pass each through a sieve, still keeping them separate.
Heat the soup adding the nettles just before serving.
Season with salt and lemon juice to taste.
Stinging nettle is an incredibly nutritious plant that has a similar taste and texture to spinach when cooked.
Stinging nettle is grown by farmers, gardeners and grows abundantly in many places around BC throughout the spring and summer.
Before you decide to forage for nettle, please review the steps below.
Stinging nettle can be harvested in many places around BC throughout the spring and summer. It is best to harvest nettle in early spring before the plants start to flower, while the leaves are still tender. Stinging nettle can often be found in dense patches in sunny and partially areas with moist soil.
If you decide to forage for nettle, it is important to make sure that you’re doing so in a respectful and ethical way.
Capital Daily published an article about the ethics of foraging in BC and produced an informative podcast interview with Jared Qwustenuxun Williams, a traditional foods educator, chef, and elders’ kitchen manager with Cowichan Tribes who has been harvesting food on his ancestral territory for most of his life.
Williams shares three guidelines for foraging that provide a helpful framework for foraging ethically: