(Bet you never thought you'd see a recipe for nettles!)
I really
thought I was done with recipes from my travels, but then the universe decided
it had other ideas.
I went to
our town farmers' market this weekend.
It's been a hard year for farmers all over—too hot or too dry or
too wet. So there were only three stalls
selling vegetables this time around—and one of them had stinging nettles. I may have mentioned that at the banquet in a
castle last month (was it really a month ago now?) we had ravioli with
ricotta-nettle filling, and I figured that was my once-in-a-lifetime
opportunity to try nettles. And then
there they were at the market, just waiting for me. Of course I bought them.
There
aren't a lot of recipes out there for stinging nettles. None in my cookbook collection. None on Epicurious. So I did a Google search—and came up with
three. One was for soup, one for ravioli
(much like those I had already eaten), and one was for a sort of pesto-ish
sauce for pasta. I picked Door Number
Three—largely because for some unexplained reason I actually had all the other
ingredients called for, including sorrel, which has gone to seed and taken over
my garden. The stars aligned: this
was meant to be.
 |
| Fresh nettles! |
One
important note: Do not handle stinging
nettles barehanded, because they (duh) sting. Use gloves, or just dump them
into boiling water without touching the leaves.
Once they've cooked for a couple of minutes, they're safe to handle (get
rid of the water, though). Oh, and safe to eat.
No burning sensations, no tummy rumbles or heartburn. Really. They don't even taste strong.
Pasta with Stinging Nettle Sauce
Ingredients:
1/4 pound fresh
stinging nettles
(I used less because that's all I had)
8 ounces pasta
1/2 cup extra virgin
olive oil
1/4 pound fresh
ricotta cheese
1 lemon for zest and
juice
1 tablespoon fresh
mint, chopped
1 tablespoon fresh
parley, chopped
1 tablespoon fresh
chives, chopped
Salt and pepper, to
taste
1 small handful of
fresh sorrel leaves, washed and
torn into bite sized pieces
1/2 cup toasted
walnuts, chopped
In a large pot, bring salted water to a boil.
"Carefully" add the nettles (no bare hands!) and give them a stir.
Cook for 5 minutes and transfer them to a colander with a slotted spoon. Let
the nettles drain. Dump the water out.
Boil another pot of salted water, add your
pasta, and cook until al dente.
While the pasta is cooking, press most of the
water out of the nettles with the back of a spoon, transfer them to a food
processor and puree. Drizzle in the olive oil and process until completely
smooth. Add the ricotta, lemon zest and juice and herbs. Pulse the processor to
blend all the ingredients. Add the chopped walnuts last and pulse a couple of
times.
Taste, then season with salt and pepper.
Remove a cup of the water the pasta is cooking
in and reserve. Drain the pasta and then return it to the pot. Toss in the
nettle-ricotta cheese mixture and stir to combine. Add the fresh sorrel and a
little of the reserved pasta water to create the desired consistency of the
sauce.
Enjoy! (Don't worry--it won't bite!)
