Nettle Soup

by Maud Hallin

Serves 4

½ lb. fresh nettles

1 quart chicken broth

1 hard boiled egg

1 tbs. butter

Rinse nettles. The soft stalks can be used. But if you pick nettles of fully grown plants, use only the leaves. Of course, the fresh young tops are the best. Be sure to wear gloves, as they sting, until they have been cooked. Put rinsed nettles in a pan with a quart of water. Put to a boil. Push down the nettles into the water. When all nettles have been softened, drain liquid from nettles. Puree the nettles, mix with the chicken broth. Heat up mixture, add salt and pepper to taste. Of course, you may add chives, or a dash of garlic. As this is considered a spring dish in Scandinavia and Russia, an egg, which symbolizes rebirth, is often added. You may add some lovely quail eggs, or half an egg. The white and yellow looks especially nice as a center piece of the soup. The most elegant version is to chop an egg and mix it with soft butter. Put mixture onto some plastic wrap, and form into a sausage. Refrigerate until hardened. When ready to serve soup, cut egg/butter mixture into thick slices and put into center of soup plates. Excellent for increasing your intake of iron. Nettles freeze very well. If you have a garden, or plants, save the liquid, as fertilizer. If you allow the liquid to ferment, it works nicely as a bug spray. What many modern city people don't realize is that nettles are considered in some countries as exquisite as wild mushrooms. Nettles are used in many other countries, but to people in the Northern Hemisphere, after a long dark winter, these very early spring greens add a very needed supplement of iron, and fresh vegetables, when the root cellar was getting pretty bleak.