Nettles are a spiky leafy plant found in much of the world. The leaves can be eaten, but you need to use gloves when picking and cooking nettles since they’re prickly. Once they’re cooked they become soft. (Note: You don’t want to eat them once they’ve started flowering.)
Nettles can be found in various recipes including Nettle Cake. There are sweet and savory recipes of this cake. You can find some modern recipes for the sweet kind on the internet. The savory version of Nettle Cake was eaten during WWII. Perhaps because nettles were cheap and easy to find at a time when food was scarce.
Here’s a recipe for savory Nettle Cake…
Recipe for Savory Nettle Cake
1. Boil nettles in water for about 5 minutes.
2. Sauté onions.
3. Layer oven safe dish with: 1/2 inch breadcrumbs, cooked nettles, sautéed onions, then chopped meat (or beans/lentils), and then if desired, sliced sautéed apples.
4. Add 2 cups of stock or the nettle water from step 1.
5. Top with cooked bacon if desired.
6. Bake on 350F for 20-30 minutes.
7. Serve with gravy if desired.
Enjoy!
This article was posted on Wednesday, December 10th, 2014 at 5:32 pm and is filed under Countries & Cultures, England, Main Course, Nettle Cake, Recipes of the World. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.