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Ingredients
Method
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Wear rubber gloves for the entire handling process until the nettles are in the pot. Pick only the top two or three leaf pairs of each nettle stem. Older leaves are tough and more bitter. Wash the picked tips thoroughly in a colander under cold running water, shaking off excess.
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Set a large, heavy-based saucepan over a medium heat. Add the rapeseed oil and butter together. When the butter has melted and the foam begins to subside, add the diced onion. Cook for 8 to 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the onion is fully softened and just beginning to turn golden at the edges. Do not rush this step. Underdone onion leaves a raw, sharp note that blunts the clean flavour of the finished soup.
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Add the sliced garlic and stir for 1 minute until fragrant. Add the diced potato and stir to coat in the butter and oil. Pour in the warm vegetable stock. Bring to a gentle boil, then reduce heat and simmer uncovered for 12 to 15 minutes, until the potato is completely tender when pierced with a knife.
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Add the washed nettle tips directly to the simmering pot. They will immediately wilt and turn deep green. Stir them down and cook for exactly 3 minutes. Do not cook longer. Extended cooking dulls the colour from a lively green to a murky grey-green and flattens the mineral note that makes nettles worth using.
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Remove the pot from the heat. Using a hand-held stick blender, blitz the soup until completely smooth. This takes about 90 seconds. If using a jug blender, work in batches and leave the lid slightly ajar to allow steam to escape, holding a folded tea towel firmly over the top. Blitz until there are no fibrous threads visible.
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Return the blended soup to the pan over a low heat. Stir in the double cream. Season with the fine sea salt and black pepper. Taste carefully. The soup should be savoury and minerally, with the cream rounding out any bitterness. If it tastes flat, add salt in small pinches, tasting between each addition.
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Reheat gently to just below a simmer, stirring frequently. Do not boil the soup once the cream is added. Ladle into warmed bowls, add a small swirl of double cream to each, and scatter with the snipped chives. Serve immediately with good brown bread or soda bread on the side.
Irish Context
Nettles grow in every hedgerow and field margin across Ireland. They appear in early spring when little else is growing, and they have been used in Irish cooking for a very long time as a result, though without the kind of ceremony the ingredient sometimes attracts in other contexts.
This soup is a practical thing: it uses what is free and abundant, requires no specialist equipment, and takes less than an hour from field to table. The combination of nettles with potato and onion is entirely in keeping with how Irish cooking has long worked, building substance and depth from simple, locally available ingredients.
Tips
Pick nettles in early spring, before they flower, ideally between late March and the end of May. Once flowering begins, the leaves become coarser, more bitter, and can have a slight laxative effect in larger quantities.
After June, leave them alone. Always wear gloves when handling raw nettles.
The sting is delivered by hollow silica hairs on the underside of the leaf. Heat destroys the formic acid completely, so there is no sting once they are blanched or cooked, but there is no reason to be stung during preparation.
Floury potatoes such as Roosters or Kerr's Pinks give the soup its body and a slightly creamy texture when blended. Waxy potatoes produce a gluey, slightly gummy result that clings to the roof of the mouth.
If you cannot get nettles or want to stretch the batch, a handful of fresh spinach added with the nettles will increase volume without significantly altering the taste. It does lighten the mineral edge, however.
The soup freezes well before the cream is added. Cool it completely, portion into containers, and freeze for up to two months.
Reheat from frozen in a saucepan, add the cream at the end, and taste for seasoning again before serving.
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