Souper wild food

With ADRIAN BOOTS

Garden Food

Purple sprouting

I MIGHThave set the bar a little high with the above title but this really has to be tried to be believed, a real tasty treat. What am I talking about? Well its non-other than stinging nettles made into a delicious spring soup. There are real health and wellbeing benefits from using spring greens and in my opinion nettles are a super wild food.

They contain more iron than spinach, more protein by dry weight than any other wild plant, are full of vitamin A and C and contain elements of nitrogen and phosphates needed for healthy muscle tissue and bones.

Plus, when other spring greens run out, nettles keep going but only if they are cut back. Forget lettuce, these are the original cut and come again greens. But it’s not just the health benefits we are interested in, it is what it tastes like in a dish too.

Stinging nettle (Urtica dioica) is an erect perennial, 50 to 150cm in height, covered in fine stinging hairs. Leaves in opposite pairs up to 10cm long are heart or spear shaped, pointed and regularly toothed.

Flowers are tiny, greenish in colour, hanging in clusters like thin catkins, flowering June to September. Stinging nettles are abundant, look for them along hedgerows, verges, waste ground, gardens, woodland etc –anywhere that the ground has been disturbed or extra nutrient has been added.

But how do you improve on such an already healthy and tasty soup recipe? In my opinion the only way is with the addition of one other springtime ingredient, wild garlic. I would even go so far as to say it’s a marriage made in heaven.

You’ll need four good handfuls of nettle leaves and one good handful of garlic leaves. Remove any nettle stalks and rinse. Fry an onion until translucent, add two diced potatoes and simmer until the potatoes are cooked.

Reduce the heat then add your nettle and wild garlic leaves and at least one litre of seasoned vegetable stock. Without burning oneself on scolding hot green lava, carefully blitz until smooth. Serve with a dollop of sour cream.

And now a shameless plug – anyone booking a spring or autumn foray will receive a free copy of my forthcoming book: Wild Food and Mushroom Foraging. A beginners guide to foraging in the UK. There are a few places left on the 2nd April foray, the 9th April foray is now fully booked!

Adrian Boots is a Landscape Ecologist and expert forager running wild food forays, events and activities. Please visit: www.hedgerowcottage.co.uk for more information or email him at: hello@hedgerowcottage.co.uk

With JAKE WHITSON

IT’Sbeen a funny year for purple sprouting broccoli and many other brassicas - the cold snap we had in December was so severe that it damaged our plants, which left them rotting at the base. Nevertheless, a few pulled through and are producing florets now. I love purple sprouting and make the most of it while it’s around.

I love it on the side of a main meal, with perhaps a knob of butter melting into it. But I also like to have it as the main event, with perhaps some boiled potatoes or crusty bread on the side.

One recipe I turn to time and time again is Hugh FearnleyWhittingstall’s chilli and anchovy dressing, which is made by blending together a tin of anchovies, 150ml olive oil, 2 peeled garlic cloves, 2 tsp cider vinegar, 1 tsp mustard, half a small red chilli, black pepper and some basil leaves if you have them.

Tossed with freshly steamed purple sprouting, it is sublime.

A more unusual recipe I’ve discovered recently comes from Fuchsia Dunlop - a Chinesestyle broccoli in ginger sauce. The sauce is deceptively simple but incredibly savoury and delicious.

Start by blanching around 400g broccoli in plenty of boiling salted water until just tender but still a little crunchy. Drain, and if you plan on serving it later, refresh in plenty of cold water.

Add 2 tbsp cooking oil and 2 tbsp finely chopped ginger to a pan and fry until fragrant, then add 1 tbsp Shaoxing wine, 1/4 teaspoon sugar, a pinch of salt and 1 tsp cornflour diluted in a tablespoon of water.

If you are using cold refreshed broccoli, add this along with another 2 tablespoons of water and put a lid on so it can warm through. If using still warm freshly blanched broccoli, simply toss this in the sauce. This makes a lovely meal served with fresh steamed rice and perhaps a richer dish of tofu or meat.

Jacob Whitson is a chef, food writer and smallholder –he divides his time between the Mendips and Pembrokeshire.