Young nettle: recipes, benefits and harms

Net­tle in the gar­den, in the beds, in the flower bed — a weed with a weed. But if it is care­ful­ly col­lect­ed, washed, sort­ed out, the greens will be won­der­ful — and vit­a­min, and tasty, and bright. We will try!

How useful is nettle?

Net­tle well strength­ens the immune sys­tem, nor­mal­izes metab­o­lism, due to the high con­tent of fiber helps to elim­i­nate tox­ins and tox­ins. The high con­tent of vit­a­min K improves blood clot­ting. In folk med­i­cine, net­tle is val­ued as an anti-inflam­ma­to­ry agent. Net­tle con­tains vit­a­mins A, B, C, E, K, iron, mag­ne­sium, cop­per, cal­ci­um, sil­i­con, sele­ni­um and phy­tonu­tri­ents, in par­tic­u­lar flavonoids that pre­vent heart dis­ease, phy­ton­cides and organ­ic acids. Juicy young stems and leaves of net­tle are a rich source of chloro­phyll, and it per­fect­ly reg­u­lates meta­bol­ic process­es in the body, helps to nor­mal­ize sug­ar lev­els.

To whom is nettle harmful?

The abil­i­ty of net­tle to increase blood clot­ting makes it unde­sir­able in the diet of those who suf­fer from vari­cose veins, throm­bophlebitis and ath­er­o­scle­ro­sis — in such peo­ple it can pro­voke the for­ma­tion of blood clots. Also, the use of net­tles should be aban­doned for those who have high blood pres­sure. Net­tle is also unde­sir­able in the diet of a preg­nant woman.

What is the tastiest nettle?

Net­tle appears in ear­ly spring and grows until late autumn. And although soups and sal­ads with it are pre­pared, as a rule, only in the spring, you can eat it through­out the sea­son. In the spring, pick­ing net­tles for din­ner is eas­i­est: take and cut off the whole small bush, every­thing is edi­ble and tasty in it — stems and leaves. And in the sum­mer, when the net­tle grows up, the “col­lec­tion” should be approached more care­ful­ly: you should choose young leaves from the tops of the “youngest” net­tle, it is there that all the best that is in the net­tle is con­cen­trat­ed.

How to handle nettles so as not to get burned

You need to tear net­tles only with gloves, cut the leaves with scis­sors. To make the col­lect­ed net­tle less “aggres­sive”, you just need to … wet it, you can even use cold water: the wet weed prac­ti­cal­ly does not sting. It is nec­es­sary that she stop sting­ing at all — pour hot water over her: even min­i­mal heat treat­ment is enough for the net­tle to become the most del­i­cate and sweet­est greens.

What to cook from young nettles

What is pre­pared from young net­tles? Here’s a selec­tion of the edi­tor’s favorite recipes.

Focaccia with parmesan and nettle pesto

Cook­ing time: 1 h 30 min.

For 6 serv­ings:

For focac­cia:

• 300 g flour + for dust­ing the work sur­face
• 250 ml water
• 160 g of grat­ed parme­san
• 5 g dry yeast
• 3 art. l. veg­etable oil + for lubri­ca­tion
• 3 g of salt

For pesto:

• 60 g young net­tle
• 100 ml of olive oil
• 2 cloves of gar­lic
• 40 g wal­nuts
• 20 g Parme­san
• 1/2 h. l. year

For focac­cia, sift flour into a deep bowl, add salt, yeast and parme­san. Pour­ing warm water and veg­etable oil in a thin stream, knead a smooth homo­ge­neous dough. Cov­er the dough with a cloth and let it rise for 35–40 min­utes.

Knead the dough, divide into 2 equal parts and roll each into an even lay­er. Put the lay­ers of dough on bak­ing sheets, grease with veg­etable oil, cov­er with a cloth and let rise for anoth­er 15 min­utes. Bake focac­cia in a hot (180ºС) oven for 10–15 min­utes.

For pesto, toast the nuts in a non-fat pan, trans­fer to a kitchen tow­el, and rub well to get rid of the brown skin. Rinse the net­tles, sort, dry and pour over boil­ing water on a sieve. Peel the gar­lic.

Com­bine pre­pared prod­ucts in a blender bowl and chop. Pour olive oil in a thin stream, grind in sev­er­al steps until smooth and beat well. Stir grat­ed parme­san into the mix­ture.

Cut the fin­ished focac­cia into por­tions and pour over the net­tle pesto.

Envelopes stuffed with cottage cheese with nettle and sweet pepper

Cook­ing time: 40 min

For 6 serv­ings:

• 80 g net­tle
• 1 sweet pep­per
• 6 sheets filo pas­try
• 180 g low-fat cot­tage cheese
• 60 g but­ter
• salt pep­per

Heat the oven up to 180ºС. Wash the pep­per pod, dry it and bake in the oven for 20 min­utes, turn­ing reg­u­lar­ly. Trans­fer the roast­ed pep­pers to a plas­tic bag and let it cool slight­ly. Peel the pep­per from the skin, remove the seeds, cut the flesh into thin strips.

Rinse the net­tle, sort it out, dry it, cut off the leaves from the branch­es. Soft­en half of the but­ter.

In a deep plate, mash the cheese with soft­ened but­ter, salt and pep­per to taste. Melt the remain­ing but­ter. Place the filo pas­try on a work sur­face and brush with oil using a pas­try brush.

Cut the dough into wide strips and spread a thick lay­er of cheese along one long edge. Put the net­tle leaves and sweet pep­per on the cheese and roll the strips with the stuff­ing into tri­an­gles.

Lubri­cate the prod­ucts with but­ter and put on a bak­ing sheet lined with parch­ment. Bake envelopes with cheese and net­tles for 2–2.5 min­utes. Turn the envelopes over and bake for anoth­er 3 min­utes. Serve hot.

Drinks with greens

Cook­ing time: 1 hour

For 4 serv­ings:

• 4 thin slices of veal
• 200 g spinach
• 300 g young net­tle
• 40 g chopped hazel­nuts
• 60 g of grat­ed cheese
• 1 large onion
• 3 art. l. veg­etable oil
• 100 ml chick­en broth
• 50 ml white wine
• salt pep­per

Rinse spinach and net­tles, sort, dry and chop coarse­ly. Peel the onion, fine­ly chop and fry in a pan for 1 tbsp. l. oil 10 min. Mix the fried onion with chopped herbs, add cheese, nuts, pour 1 tbsp. l. oil and mix well. Add salt and pep­per to taste.

Beat the meat well, light­ly salt and pep­per. Put the fill­ing in the cen­ter of the meat slices and wrap it in a slice of meat, as in a bag. Fix the prod­uct tight­ly with kitchen string.

In a deep saucepan, heat the remain­ing veg­etable oil and fry the popies on both sides until gold­en brown.

Pour the chick­en broth and wine into the saucepan, reduce the heat to a min­i­mum and sim­mer the drinks for 30 min­utes. Serve hot with a light veg­etable sal­ad.

Nettle soup with blue cheese

Cook­ing time: 30 min.

For 3 serv­ings:

• 700 g young net­tle
• 1 large pota­to
• 100 g blue cheese
• 1 l veg­etable broth
• salt pep­per

Rinse the net­tles, sort and dry, cut off the leaves from the stems. Peel pota­toes, wash, dry and cut into small cubes.

Bring veg­etable broth to a boil in a saucepan, add pota­toes and cook cov­ered for 10 min­utes. Add net­tles to the broth, reduce the heat to a min­i­mum and cook for anoth­er 5 min­utes.

Remove soup from heat. Set aside a lit­tle cheese for serv­ing and gar­nish­ing, lay the rest in the soup and puree it with a blender until a smooth, homo­ge­neous mass is obtained. Add salt and pep­per to taste.

Serve the soup hot, gar­nished with crum­bled blue cheese.

Cupcake with nettles and sun-dried tomatoes

Cook­ing time: 1 hour

For 6–8 serv­ings:

• 200 g young net­tle
• 60 g sun-dried toma­toes in oil
• 150 g flour
• 1 sachet of bak­ing pow­der
• 100 ml veg­etable oil
• 3 eggs
• 100 ml milk
• but­ter for greas­ing the mold
• salt pep­per

Heat the oven up to 180ºС.

Rinse the net­tles, sort and dry, cut off the leaves from the stems.

Cut the toma­toes into small cubes.

Sift flour with bak­ing pow­der into a deep bowl. Add eggs, veg­etable oil and milk, salt, pep­per and mix until smooth.

Add net­tles, toma­toes to the dough and mix again.

Pour bat­ter into greased pan and bake for 45 min­utes.