where the wild things are no. 13. stinging nettle and spring garlic soup.

NETTLES

According to one of my very favorite books, The Dictionary of Gastronomy 1969 which offers concise little blurbs of information of all things gastronomic; “Nettles are a troublesome weed sometimes called stinging nettle. They are nourishing enough to eat if picked when young and tender. Country housewives cook nettles as spinach and in Eire, nettle soup is a specialty. Nettle beer is also made in some countryside districts in Britain."

Though I won’t be attempting Nettle beer anytime soon, nettles have been on my mind since encountering the nettle and pecorino pizza at Pizzaiolo in Oakland last month. Nettles are not unfamiliar to me. My relationship with them, however, has always been a bitter one. As a country kid, left to my own devices, I had more than the occasional encounter with the tiny stinging welts that cover your flesh once you come into contact with them. In the summer, we kept several bottles of witch hazel on hand to combat just such encounters. Nettles grow in the tall grass, at the woods edge, in abandoned building lots and surround blackberry bushes as though they are standing guard against little hands of intruders.

Nettles, have a long history as both a food source and a medicinal plant. Perhaps you have the fairly common nettle tea or a nettle pesto? Nettles, which must be blanched to be used in cooking in order to remove the toxins from the stinging hollow needle like hairs, taste a lot like  spinach and are full of vitamins and minerals. Why not just eat spinach you ask? The whole process of battling this wild plant is fun. It is a challenge. Why not get to know some of your wild edibles, especially those that are abundant not endangered, long seasoned and often free. I do admit that my first sip of nettle soup was taken with a great deal of trepidation. I waited for my throat to sting wildly. It did not. Nettles are one of the first plants to show up in the early spring thereby making them an attractive and green food source after long winters for settlers and Native Americans. There are many benefits to this little weed that outweigh it’s stinging reputation. As well as from being good for you, the fibers of the plant can be used to make a textile similar to linen, it’s roots can be used to make a  vibrant yellow natural dye. Nettles are rich in nitrogen,  which makies them an excellent compost activator and of course they taste good!

Wear long pants and long sleeves to harvest your nettles and always wear gloves! Clip the top tender most leaves of the plant, throw them into a brown paper bag for transport. When you get them home put the gloves back on and throw them into a salad spinner to wash away any dirt or little critters. When you transfer them to the pot to blanch them wear gloves! They are not safe to touch until they have been blanched or if making  tea after they have been put in the boiling water.

These days, Nettles are popping up on menus all over the country. You can most likely find them, if you prefer to be less adventurous than gathering them yourself, from a local forager or wildcrafter or local green market.

I might just declare this nettle week here at hungry ghost and shoot them all week long!

I did not gather these nettles myself as the weather upstate is still a bit cold on our side of the mountain. I got them both from a wild food gatherer and from a stall at the Union Squre Green Market. Because nettles shrink so much, like any green when cooking, you will need much more than you would think you would need. I look forward to gathering some near my own blackberry bushes once the sun finally shines on delaware country.

Keep in mind if you gather in the wild to always positively identify a plant before consuming it!

Stinging Nettle and Spring Garlic soup

15 loosley packed cups of nettles

1 spring garlic

Three small shallots

3tblspoons butter

1 qt. of organic chicken stock

8 cups of water

bowl of ice for plunge bath

Salt and pepper to taste

Fresh ground nutmeg to taste (optional)

Nettle blossoms for garnish (optional)

Method

Set 8 cups of water in a large pot to boil.

When boiling (with gloves) add your stinging nettles to blanch.

Quickly remove them once blanched and plunge them in an ice bath.

Squeeze the excess water from the nettles and set them aside ( they will be  a mere shadow of their former self at this point. greatly reduced in volume.

Chop the spring garlic bulb and the shallots into small pieces.

Add the butter to a medium size soup pot and melt over a low heat.

Add the onion and the garlic to sautee until just translucent and soft.

Remove from the heat.

Chop the ball of blanched nettles into coarse pieces.

Add the chopped nettles to the melted butter and sauteed onions and return to a low heat, Cook for two minutes stirring constantly.

Add the quart of chicken broth and simmer the onions, garlic, nettles and broth for twenty or so minutes until the nettles are very soft.

Remove from the heat and puree the whole mixture in a blender.

Run the soup mixture through a fine sieve o remove any large particles.

Return the soup to the pot and heat to serve.

Add salt and pepper to taste.

Garnish with garlic mustard blossoms and fresh cracked pepper.

Serve with a hard boiled egg and some ramp butter on your favorite bread!

 

 

where the wild things things are no.12. dandelion.

There is nothing quite like the first signs of spring. It is still relatively cold up here in the Catskills but the first signs of spring are all around. The woods are colored with vibrant green patches of ramp and the edges of nearby streams are dotted with clusters of wild watercress. In my own yard and bleak garden beds are a few renegade early dandelions. The name dandelion comes from the French word Dent de Lion, meaning lion's tooth. It is named so for it's jagged sharp tooth like points on its leaves. I decided to cook the dandelions I needed to pull from the garden beds and to roast the roots for a coffee substitute. The best time for dandelion greens, which are rich in vitamin A and C and Calcium, is when they are quite small early in the season before they produce flower buds. Later in the season they become too bitter. The early settlers used dandelion as a spring tonic to get a boost of the vitamins they lacked over the long cold winters.

My grandmother used to talk about eating wild greens both dandelion and chicory which grew wild in the hills of Puglia. I am not sure she really got her fill living in Long Island City. When she moved to Vermont in the mid 60's she was able to get clean pesticide free wild greens from the local farmers.

The whole plant is edible from the leaves to the flower to the roots. I sautéed the greens and made some dandelion toasts as well as a dandelion frittata. I then roasted the roots on a baking sheet until they were brittle and made quite a delicious coffee like substitute. In fact, I could grow to like the roasted dandelion roots very much.

You don't need a yard to get your dandelion on; they are available in the spring at most farmers markets. I saw they were starting to turn up the past few weeks at the Union Square Greenmarket. Prepare them anyway you would sautéed greens or make a pesto or a soup. The possibilities are endless. How will you get your spring tonic on?

I will post recipies in the next few days..but really this is meant to inspire whatever dandelion recipe you can conjure up!

 

dandelion and pecorino  frittata

dandelion and pecorino  frittata

 

sautéed dandelion greens with bacon

 sauteed dandelion toasts with shallot vingrette and pecorino, top with a poached egg.

prparing the roots for roasting

 roasted dandelion roots

 steeped dandelion root

heirloom apple sauce spice cake.

 

 Copyright © 2012 Andrea Gentl all rights reserved 

Sometimes, it is necessary to dig into those old fashioned cookbooks. I like the ones with the simple covers and no photographs like Fanny Farmer or my grandmother's very worn and battered Joy Of Cooking. I was looking for a recipe for an applesauce cake, as these chilly spring mornings bring on the need for childhood comfort foods.

Strangely enough, as I opened the worn and battered blue Joy of Cooking an aged index card fell out. It was a recipe for an applesauce cake. It was in my writing and it was dated 1983. There many days when I sat down with my grandmother and attempted to record her recipes that were in her head, passed down from my Nonni, raised in Puglia and transplanted to the streets of Brooklyn and Long Island City. This index card did not represent one of those recipes; instead it most likely came from the pages of Ladies Home Journal or McCall’s Magazine. I looked in the index of the Joy Of Cooking and there was a recipe for an applesauce cake but it was different from the one on the card, so in an attempt to make my own mark, I have transformed it one step further. I omitted the allspice and the cinnamon and added ginger and heirloom applesauce as well as whole-wheat pastry flour. I finished it off by grating an apple and some fresh ginger on top.

Heirloom Applesauce Ginger Spice Cake

Butter

Sugar

Egg

Applesauce 

 Whole Wheat Pastry Flour

Salt

Baking soda

Baking powder

Nutmeg

Ginger (both fresh and ground)

Cream one 1/2  cup butter with 1 cup of sugar

Add 1 egg and beat well

Add 1 cup of applesauce

Mix the dry ingredients in another bowl

2 cups of  whole wheat pastry flour

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon of ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon of freshly ground nutmeg

Mix well and slowly add to wet mixture stirring until all combined

Grease a round cake tin

Add batter

Grate 1 small apple on top and a healthy dose of fresh ginger

Preheat oven to 350 degrees cook for 1 hr or until done.

where the wild things are. no. 11.wild mushroom miso broth

Last week while in San Francisco I had a strange stomach bug. I realized I was in trouble as I sat at Burma Superstar with the tea leaf salad and rainbow salad before me unable to take a bite! I didn't even venture to Mission Chinese... and was unable to finish a Nettle and pecorino pizza at Pizzaiolo; it was so sad! I started to feel better towards the end of the week as we headed up North after copious amounts of ginger drops and not a lot to eat. When I got back to New York I still felt a little under the weather and was craving something clean and healthy. I decided to delve into my stash of dried wild mushrooms to make a miso mushroom broth and to add all my favorite greens. It was kind of like making a faux Pho. I soaked a handful of dried mushrooms over night in three cups of water. In the morning I had a clear brown mushroom broth. On it's own it tasted a little forest floor, so I decided to add 4 big tablespoons of organic light Japanese Miso paste. To that I added a handful of beautiful little Beech Mushrooms and heated the broth to a simmer. I added a dash of Bhutanese red pepper (you can use any red pepper flakes you have on hand).

I cooked the buckwheat noodles separately according to the instructions, drained them and rinsed under cold water and set them aside. In the meantime I prepped mint leaves,  scallion, cilantro, basil and micro radish greens. I washed the greens and sliced the scallion.

When I was done with the greens I reheated the whole soup quickly to a rolling boil, then threw in the noodles to heat quickly and then turned it off.  I immediately ladled the soup and the noodles into two warmed bowls (I kept them in the oven on 200).

I topped it with all my favorite things... baby cilantro, coriander basil, mint, pea shoots and micro radish greens, hit it with the juice of half a lime and a hit of black pepper.

Totally healing and completely deliscious.

inspired by the day... irish soda bread. sort of.

I woke up this morning determined to make an Irish Soda Bread. I saw a post on modern farmette on Dulse butter and it has been rolling around the back of my mind ever since.! Anything relating to Inish food peaks my curiosity. Since I don't have Dulse, I am going to substitute juniper. Next time I get some seaweed I will try her butter, for now it has inspired me nonetheless.

I have eaten Irish Soda Bread less than ten times in my life, two or three were in Ireland and the rest, every so often at home. It is something my stepmother liked to pull out around this time of the year along with corned beef and cabbage or New England boiled dinner. St. Patricks Day and Easter inspired these things along with the annual hot cross buns and the coconut lamb cake... a cake in the shape of a lamb covered in swirls of coconut frosting.

These foods have not really made it into my repetoire of cooking in my adult  life. I tend cook with a laissez- faire mediterranean bent, focusing on local and seasonal foods. I pull a lot of my inspiration from my maternal grandparents who were  from Rome and Puglia. Every so often however, I nod to my step mother's roots, Irish, French and New England Farmhouse Yankee beacuse you can never quite deny where you come from. I thank her often for all my canning abilities, cheese making and butter making skills. I learned early how to be a true pioneer, growing up on a small family farm I can milk a cow and a goat, butcher a hen, tap my trees and make  farmhouse cheese. Not bad for a renegade distracted tomboy with one foot out the door and her Piscean head in the clouds all the time. At least I learned something!

So.. on this bright sunny day I have decided to make an Irish Soda Bread. The house is quiet as there is no one home but me. Will anyone be here to eat it before it turns rock hard as they are apt to do? Let's hope! I may find myself carrying it over the bridge to share with Meredith and Clementine. I love the way a soda bread looks. I am a sucker for old school rustic beauty. I can just imagine it sitting on a farmhouse table in the late 1800's with a bit of Modern Farmette's Dulse butter.

I just saw that Food52 did a whole post on Corned Beef and Cabbage and Irish Brown Soda Bread. See it here.

Juniper Butter

One half pint of organic heavy cream

6 dried juniper berries

Pinch of sea salt

Pour the heavy cream into your blender or small Cuisinart

Crush the juniper berries with the back of a spoon and add to the heavy cream

Add a pinch of sea salt

Blend at a high speed until the butter forms and separates from the buttermilk

Removethe butter and strain in a cheese cloth

Discard the butter milk liquid

Refridgerate until firm

Brown Irish Soda Bread With Dates and Raisins

(Quick Irish Soda Bread)

Adapted from the Joy of Cooking 1964 edition. My grandmother's  copy worn and tattered...

I bastardized this recipe. just saying.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees

Sift together in a large bowl

2 cups of whole wheat pastry flour

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

Mix the dry ingredients

6 tablespoons chilled butter cut in small piecesadd the choppped butter and mix with your fingers until it resembles a coarse  corn meal

1 tablespoon black strap molasses

 Add the molasses

1/2 cup raisins

1/4 cup dried dates 

a few shelled green pistachios

1/2 to 2/3 cup buttermilk

Add the dried fruit and the buttermilk

Mix until just bended

The dough should not be dry.

Put the dough in a greased cast iroon frying pan or on a sheet pan

Form into a round loaf or mound

Cut a bold cross on the top, letting it go ovethe sides so the bread will not crack.

Bake 40-50 minutes

This particular recipie was like a rich brown scone. not exactly soda bread but delicious just the same!

THe original recipie calls for white flour

white sugar and raisins

( I added the dates , pistachios, molasses and wheat flour)