Nettle soup
Dried black lime gives a lovely sour flavour to this soup made with foraged nettles, mussels and a swirl of either crème fraîche or thick yoghurt. Garnish with wild garlic or wild three-cornered leek flowers.
Ingredients
- butter: 100/3½dz unsalted butter
- leekleek: 100/3½dz leek (about ½ leek), finely sliced
- potatopotato: 150/5½dz potato (about 1 small potato), peeled and finely sliced
- stock: 1 litre/1¾ pint good-quality flavoured stock (chicken, vegetable or mussel)
- new potatoes: 100/3½dz new potatoes (tiny Jersey Royal ‘mids’ are ideal)
- lime: 1 dried black lime
- mussels: 500g/1lb 2oz mussels, washed and beards removed
- white wine: splash white wine
- lime: 1 lime, zest and juice only
- nettles: 500g/1lb 2oz nettles, picked from their stems and washed, a few tiny ones reserved for garnish
- crème fraîche: 100/3½dz crème fraîche or thick yoghurt
- salt: salt, to taste
To serve
- wild garlic: wild garlic or wild three-cornered leek flowers
Method
To make the nettle soup, heat half of the butter in a pan and then add the leek and potato with a little salt and cook until translucent. Add the stock and bring to a simmer. Cook until the vegetables are very soft (5 minutes if they are sliced thinly).
In a separate pan, cook the new potatoes in boiling salted water until tender.
Grind the black lime to a powder in a spice grinder or coffee grinder, or with a mortar and pestle.
Meanwhile, discard any mussels that do not close when tapped.
Add a splash of wine to a hot lidded pan and tip the mussels in. Steam until all the shells are opened (discard any that do not open). Tip the mussels onto a tray and allow to cool slightly. Pick the mussels from their shells and strain the liquor to add to the soup. Add the lime zest to the liquor, but do not add the lime juice yet.
When the vegetables are cooked, add the nettles to the pan. Put a lid on the pan and bring to a boil. Cook quickly for 1–2 minutes, or until the nettles are soft.
Tip everything into a blender and blend until smooth (about 1–2 minutes), adding the the remaining 50g/1¾oz butter and a little of the crème fraîche, plus the reserved mussel liquor with lime zest. Return to a clean pan to warm through. Taste and add salt if needed, and at the last minute add the lime juice.
To serve, distribute the mussels and cooked tiny potatoes between warm bowls. Ladle in the soup, add a final blob of crème fraîche, some small nettles for garish, and scatter over the black lime. Add a final garnish of wild garlic or wild three-cornered leek flowers to finish (if available).
