Love Stings

Brush against nettles and your skin burns. What could possibly be the appeal?

Nettles have tiny, spiky hairs along their stems made from silica, as sharp as glass. They were something to fear when I was a young girl living in rural Ireland. My little sister and I learned that if we reached into the undergrowth to pick a flower or chase a hen, we might feel the sudden, hot sting on our hands. If it was warm enough to wear shorts or skirts, the vicious plants left intense, hive-like bumps on our legs. But we learned how to get rid of the burn; if we looked for a Dock plant, we could tear off a large leaf, fold it in our hands, and rub it against our skin until its juices calmed the sting. Knowing we had the cure within reach gave us confidence on those long, unstructured days.

My mother tamed nettles at the stove. Every spring, she turned out a pot of nettle soup, a light purée of nettles and potatoes, finished with creamy milk.  I came to look forward to it, and after I moved to America as a teenager, I missed it.  Throughout my twenties I was a restaurant cook. I hand-rolled pasta, roasted cases of peppers, and preserved lemons. I stirred rondeaux of risotto, sautéed sweetbreads and made beurre blanc with pounds of butter.  At the end of that decade, I moved to New York, where I started a little soup company– I called it Stinging Nettle Soups. But what I cooked in my tiny kitchen and ferried piping hot across Avenue A, was not nettle soup– it was probably minestrone, or tomato, or potato and leek. Because even if I could have found nettles at Union Square Greenmarket in the mid-nineties to add to my pot (fat chance!), I didn’t think for a second that the young artistes and rock stars who gravitated to café Limbo, would order it. Even so, the thought of nettle soup conjured up the comfort of a big pot simmering on the back of the stove, satisfying, simple flavors, and a wild landscape where I could pick my own greens. I carved a rubber stamp with my business name, and it made me smile every time I stamped my invoices:

                                              Stinging Nettle Soups

Nettles have become a small obsession to me over the years. But I’ll admit that my love of nettles is partly nostalgia for that place, that time. Having a taste of nettles has become an itch I need to scratch (sorry).  I yearn for their deep, savory flavor, and I have a sense that my body needs them each spring. These are greens with a subtle earthiness, an edge, and a chew. They don’t have the sweetness of cooked Swiss chard or collards, the cabbaginess of kale, nor the astringency that makes your teeth feel fuzzy, like spinach can.  They give a hint of the sea–odd as that sounds– a mineral backbone that holds up other flavors. Pair nettles with nutty flavors and textures: brown butter, toasted hazelnuts, pine nuts, parmesan and aged gouda; whole grains like farro, and whole wheat pasta. But do cook them in tender things too: I love them in egg dishes like frittatas and omelets with cheese, and of course a simple puréed soup with potatoes. They can be a little bit chewy, so when nettles are large and sturdy, like the ones from the market, I often cook them twice- first I blanch them in boiling water, and then I chop them and sauté them in olive oil or butter.  My latest nettle haul, from a neighbor’s patch, went into a creamy potato gratin.  The cream and garlic bubbled into a golden-brown layer on top of the potatoes and the nettles added a depth of flavor. Everyone at the table was enchanted– they thought there was cheese in the gratin, even though there wasn’t

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Spring into early summer is the time to eat nettles, when they’re tender and full of the energy of new growth. We’re all coming out of darkness, and nettles are packed with minerals.  My mother says you should only eat them before they’ve formed their tiny flower buds, because after that they’re too “hot” for your blood, and even though that’s sort of abstract, it makes sense to me in a country-wisdom kind of way. She also says you should use only the top four or five leaves. This is probably to help encourage the plant’s growth, but it also means you’re cooking with the most tender leaves.  If you live in New York City, you can find bunches of nettles at the farmers’ market. If you live elsewhere, ask a neighbor if you can traipse through their garden.

A RECIPE FOR

Potato and Nettle Gratin                                                                                 

This gratin is a treat for a cool spring evening. It’s divinely creamy, with nettles nestled among the layers of potatoes. Make it when you’re in the mood to be in the kitchen; put on some mellow music, get out your mandoline, and apply a calm focus to slicing the potatoes nice and thin.

Nettles, 4 ounces/120 g (approximately 10 loose cups)

Coarse salt and black pepper

Unsalted butter, 4 tablespoons, room temperature

Garlic cloves, 3 medium

Heavy cream, 1 ½ cups  

Sour cream, ¼ cup (this was a whim–just use a bit more cream if you prefer)

Potatoes, Yukon Gold or similar, 2 pounds

Prep The Nettles:

If you’re not ready to make a gratin today, you can go ahead and get this part done; the cooked nettles can be refrigerated for another day.

Using gloves to handle the nettles or put your hand in a plastic bag so you can grab them without getting stung.  Trim off the thickest stems with scissors, drop the leaves into the basket of a salad spinner or a bowl, and fill it with water.  Gently swish the nettles around and lift out of the water. Repeat twice, or until the water left in the bottom of the salad spinner or bowl looks clean. Lift the nettles out.

Bring a medium pot of water to a boil and salt it well (about 2 teaspoons coarse salt). Add the nettles gradually, pushing down until they’re all submerged. Cook until bright green, about 2 minutes; drain until cool enough to handle.

Press all the water out of the nettles, then coarsely chop them.  You should have a large fistful of cooked greens. Squeeze the fistful really hard to get rid of any water they’re holding on to.

Make The Gratin:

Preheat the oven to 375º F/ 190ºC.  Rub the inside of a gratin dish with about 1 tablespoon butter. Slice one garlic clove in half and rub the cut side of the garlic all over the buttered dish. Thinly slice the remaining garlic. Combine with cream and sour cream in a small saucepan. Season with salt and pepper, and warm over low heat until steaming.

Peel the potatoes and thinly slice on a mandoline (about the thickness of a kettle chip). Do not rush this part, and don’t try to slice the very end of each potato, or you’ll slice your fingertips too.  Pause as you go, to fill the bottom of the gratin dish with a layer of potatoes. Sprinkle lightly with salt, season with pepper, and scatter a few nettles on them; moisten with the garlic cream. Repeat, until potatoes and nettles and cream are all layered in the dish.  Press gently so the surface is flat and spoon any last bits of cream over the top. Cut the remaining 3 tablespoons butter into small pieces and dot the top with them.

Cover the gratin dish with foil and bake until potatoes are tender, and cream is bubbling, about 30 minutes. Remove the foil and return the dish to the oven until the top is golden brown, about 15 minutes.

I’ve returned to the Irish countryside, where my mother and brother and his family still live, every year of my life.  This April when I visited, I was lucky to have two clear, sunny days, and the rest of the time it rained and rained. And rained.  My sister and I stayed in a little wooden cabin on the farmland. We hadn’t been cooking much in the tiny cabin kitchen, but I didn’t want to leave without a taste of the spring in this grounding place. On the last night of our stay, I put on my sister’s Wellies, and armed with scissors, rubber gloves, and a plastic bag, I trudged out across the sodden fields in search of nettles to cook for dinner. I found a few patches of young nettle plants on the small, grassy embankments at the edge of the farm.

I turned those nettles into a quick, satisfying bowl of pasta e fagioli for the two of us. It was a riff, not a traditional dish: In a cheap, non-stick skillet, I sautéed the tender nettle leaves with garlic until wilted, and added tomato paste and powdered chili, and cooked them a minute. Then I stirred in a jar of good-quality Italian cannellini beans. I’d cooked short tubes of pasta in a separate pot, and they went into the beans along with some of the starchy pasta water. I spooned it into bowls and grated cheese on top. My sister and I took our bowls to the sofa in front of the blazing woodstove, where we ate to the sound of the rain pattering on the tin roof.