Fireweed salad

I wanted a salad this evening so I grabbed a paper sack and wandered out to see what I could find. For some reason the Claytonia (miner’s lettuce) isn’t very prolific in its usual places. In fact, I could hardly find any! So as I was wandering back to the house pondering yet another “winter salad”, I saw the fireweed patch. Now this is mostly a couple feet tall already, but I did find a few smaller shoots in the garden and elsewhere.

Since I know it can be bitter when larger, I tasted each piece as I washed them. I used scissors and snipped them and the few Claytonia leaves into my bowl with a couple of chopped spears of asparagus. A pinch of kosher salt, fresh ground black pepper, vinegar and oil made for a wonderful first spring salad.

Now I’ll have to keep my eye out for any young shoots left. I shouldn’t have dawdled!

More on fireweed here and here.

Local Foragers on KUOW!

Listen to local forager Langdon Cook who blogs at Fat of the Land on KUOW’s Weekday show!

Proof of concept

It may seem like I’ve converted to Pastafarianism, but I’m just taking advantage of the nettles before they get full of flea beetles. This time I made fettucine.

I decided to test my idea of freezing the nettles in the form of pasta so I generously floured them and froze two batches in freezer containers. If they freeze well without breaking or otherwise getting destroyed, I’ll make more but pack them with the vacuum sealer. They would get frosty in these containers with longer storage.

Since it was just me tonight, I made a quick sauce of sun-dried tomatoes, peppers and peas for all the scraps.

Nettle Pasta

Nettles are abundant as usual this year and I’m trying to find new ways to enjoy them besides the usual sautés. Last month a spinach lasagne meme hit the food blogs and some participants’ “mistakes” inspired me to make nettle pasta. The error in question was a misreading of the typical spinach pasta recipe which calls for steaming the fresh spinach. Those that missed that particular instruction had good results despite using raw spinach in their doughs. This was good news to me since I’m looking for new ways to use nettles without steaming them first.

Of course they’re still prickly so some special treatment is required. First I rinsed the nettles and dried them with a tea towel. Then I carefully placed them into my food processor using tongs. I splashed on about 2 tablespoons of olive oil, a half teaspoon of salt, and 4 eggs. (This would be a good time to add in other herbs and spices if desired. I was going for plain the first go round.) Process until creamy.

Raw nettles bristling in the food processor

Next I added in the flour. I poured in about half a cup or so of semolina flour and the rest was bread flour. You could use whole wheat as well. Add enough flour and pulse until a soft dough forms. It was a couple of cups worth in the end.

Add flour(s) to make a soft dough

Dump the dough out onto a floured surface and …

Green nettle dough

knead, adding flour if necessary, until you have a pliable dough. Rest for 5-10 minutes or more.

Form a ball and rest the dough

I rolled it out with my pasta maker, but then just made rough cut squares since that’s what was requested by my rolling assistant.

Nettle maltagliati

I cooked them for about 3 minutes or so and served them with a quick vegetarian cannellini sauce. The nettle pasta was wonderfully flavorful without any trace of the “earthiness” that nettles sometimes have. I was also happy to be able to cook them only once and avoid washing all the nutrients away in the steaming water.

Nettle pasta with beans

I’ll do it again although I’ll make sure to have a bit of bacon or pancetta on hand for the sauce.

This post participated in the “Grow Your Own” Roundup #27 hosted by House of Annie

Nettle Season Begins

I’ve posted about nettles before and have been excitedly anticipating their arrival. There’s been a lot of snow this winter and I’ve been looking forward to the first signs of spring. For me, that means going out to pick the first stinging nettles.

Yesterday I wandered out the trail that meanders in the general vicinity of our western property line and was able to pluck a small bag of spring shoots. I think this is the earliest that I’ve gone out, but I just couldn’t wait any longer. Normally that loop would net a grocery sack’s worth in mere minutes, but I was able to get enough for dinner at least.

I’m always looking for new ways to prepare them as well. Nettles work great as a stand in for chard, spinach and pretty much any other cooked leafy green. I do find the steaming, squeezing and chopping routine a mite tedious, however, so this time I tried something new.

Nettles sautéing with onions and spices

After rinsing I carefully dumped the nettles onto my cutting board and, keeping my distance, sort of whacked at them with my knife. This resulted in a roughly chopped pile that I then dumped into a pan where I had onions and spices waiting. After a few stirs, the nettles had lost their ferocity and I had a pan of greens that weren’t also soggy. Yay!

I used one of the Spinach Dhal recipes from Complete Indian Cooking by Mridula Galjekar, Rafi Fernandez, Shehzad Husain and Manisha Kanani as a starting point and, with a few substitutions, ended up with a delicious vegetarian meal. I’ve listed original recipe ingredients in brackets and copied the instructions as written.

Nettle Dhal

1 cup split yellow mung beans [chana dhal or yellow split peas]

3/4 cup water

1 tbsp mustard oil [oil]

1/2 tsp brown mustard seeds [1/4 tsp black mustard seeds]

1/2 onion, thinly sliced [1 whole onion]

4 garlic cloves, crushed [2 cloves]

1″ piece fresh root ginger, grated

1 tsp chipotle in adobo [1 fresh red chilli, finely chopped]

1 small bag fresh nettles, roughly chopped [10 oz frozen spinach, thawed]

1 tsp ground cumin [1/4 tsp chilli powder]

1/2 tsp ground coriander

1 tsp garam masala [1/2 tsp]

1/2 tsp salt

1. Wash the chana dhal or split peas in several changes of cold water. Put into a bowl and cover with plenty of water. Leave to soak for 30 minutes.

2. Drain the pulses and put them in a large pan with the water. Bring to the boil, cover and simmer for 20-25 minutes until soft.

3. Meanwhile, heat the oil in a large heavy pan and fry the mustard seeds for 2 minutes until they begin to splutter. Add the onion, garlic, ginger and chilli and fry for 5-6 minutes. Add the spinach and cook for 10 minutes or until the spinach is dry and the liquid has been absorbed. Stir in the remaining spices and salt and cook for 2-3 minutes.

4. Drain the split peas, add to the spinach and cook for about 5 minutes. Serve at once.

Nettle Dhal served with basmati rice, spicy papad and chilli pickle.