Nettle can be used to make many healthy meals. Most people only know how to cook soup from nettle, but salads, pancakes are also prepared from it, added to pies and side dishes.
In May-June, it is customary to cook young nettle soups. Collecting nettles for food should be away from the roadway - for example, in the forest, and preferably in kitchen gardens and orchards. It contains vitamin C - there is more of it than black currant. In addition to it, there are many other vitamins in the plant, there are trace elements, as well as formic acid, which is the reason for burns in those who want to touch the nettle.
What should be the nettle for the soup? It is necessary to choose young plants that have not overgrown - a burning substance accumulates in them. Therefore, nettle soup is cooked only in May or early June. Special admirers of the dish try to dry nettles and add them when cooking in soups all summer long. However, do not get too carried away with eating the plant - the content of vitamin K does not affect blood clotting in the best way. If in the summer you want to eat a little nettle, you only need to tear off the first four leaves from above. You should first put on tight gloves.
What are nettle soups
The classic nettle soup is made from potatoes and water, adding a raw egg and whitening with sour cream. But now soup is cooked with nettle and in chicken, vegetable, fish broths, even nettle soup with stewed meat is prepared. The dish, of course, loses its original meaning, it is no longer a lean brew, but a soup made from various ingredients with herbs. It's just that the greens include nettles.
Many people cook soup in spring with chicken broth, seasoning with fried vegetables - carrots, onions, tomatoes. Collected and washed nettles, chopped, can be added to the pan 5-10 minutes before the end of cooking. For nettle soup, use a low-fat broth. Before turning off the heat under the pan, you can break a raw egg, shake it in a cup, and pour it into the broth. It is better to serve such a dish with sour cream.
If eaters don't like a loose raw egg in broth, you can serve nettle soup with half boiled. You can also serve with a whole egg, only you must first cut it. Otherwise, it will be extremely inconvenient for eaters to try to separate a piece from it in a plate.
Nettle soup on the water
To boil nettle soup in water, you need the following ingredients:
· Water - 2 liters.
· 3 medium sized potatoes.
1 carrot
3 hard-boiled eggs.
· 200 g of greens of nettles.
· Salt to taste.
Pour water into a saucepan and put on fire. While it is boiling, you need to wash and peel the vegetables. Cut the potatoes into cubes, carrots into thin circles. After boiling water, place chopped vegetables in it.
Boil the contents of the saucepan over medium heat for about 15 minutes to soften the vegetables. The green nettle leaves must be washed, sorted out, then soaked in cold water for 5 minutes. Then take out the nettle, rinse under running water using a colander. Finally, put the nettles in a bowl and pour boiling water over them so that they stop stinging.
Now the leaves must be folded into a saucepan, salt to taste and boiled with vegetables for about 5 minutes more. The soup is ready. Serve hot with sour cream.
