The first nettle cabbage soup was difficult for us. This was quite a few years ago, nettles threatened to burn, the idea of ​​​​turning them into soup seemed an unworthy trick of country life, deprived of such an option as a supermarket with human products. Everything that happened in a small country kitchen - the battle with scorching stems and the separation of tender leaves - was a feat, and the result - the most tender and emerald-bright cabbage soup - was an accidental luck.
Having repeated this culinary experiment and other experiments with nettles since then, let’s say: the idea of ​​​​using the weed in cooking is a good one.

Nettle is a very delicate product that imparts a charm of freshness and summer to every dish in which it appears. In addition to cabbage soup, you can make salads and pies with it. But you need to start with soups - because the transformation of an evil weed into the most beautiful dish is most obvious here.
You'll see, in another year they will start serving nettles in restaurants. The trend for grass-fed and local products is so strong that this is bound to happen. This will be followed by salads with honey and dandelions, spicy sauce with plantain and burdock tartare. And that's great! In the meantime, you need to train on nettles.
By the way, culinary historians believe that nettle soup is an archetypical food that all of Europe ate in the spring, then the archetypal soup was transformed into a variety of cabbage soup, cream soups, etc.
Traditional recipes for nettle soups are found in Sweden and Ireland. Well, in Russia, of course.
The ingredients are the same everywhere - in addition to nettles, potatoes and onions are added to the soup. Sometimes carrots and rice keep them company. The last one is if you are not making cabbage soup, but cream soup. Rice is needed for a viscous consistency.
How to handle nettles before boiling them?
Nettles need to be found in a secluded place, preferably in the forest. So that there is no environmental trouble nearby - passing cars, for example. Young shoots should be selected. They are often lighter than others and certainly lower.

This kind of nettle will do

Cabbage soup with nettles

• 2 cups nettle leaves
• 2 potatoes
• 1 carrot
• 1 onion
• 1 hard-boiled egg
• sour cream
• salt - to taste

The production method is simple: peel the onion, throw it into a saucepan with water, and put it on the fire. We peel the potatoes, cut them into cubes and throw them into the onion, peel the carrots and cut them into slices - we also add them to the soup. Add salt and wait until the soup boils and cooks, gurgling quietly, for another 15 minutes after that. During this time, chop the nettles. Hard stems need to be cut off; everything that goes into cooking must be tender. Add nettles at the end of cooking; they will cook very quickly. Five minutes of cooking is enough time for it. But the soup turns out beautiful, if you give the nettle more time, then it is cooked to a puree state and the soup looks especially beautiful. After this, turn off the heat, the soup can be served. Place a boiled egg (half or slice) and sour cream on a plate.

People have long appreciated the beneficial properties of nettle leaves, and science confirms them: it contains 4 times more vitamin C than oranges and lemons, and more carotene than carrots. The taste of young nettle may not be too bright, rather herbaceous, but this super-healthy green can be combined with anything. We have selected for you the coolest recipes from young nettle.

Salads with nettles

Use young nettle leaves for cooking green salad. To prevent nettles from biting, you must first place it in a colander or sieve and pour boiling water over it, then rinse with cool water. The taste of the salad will be determined, of course, not by nettles, but by other ingredients (salads, vegetables) and dressing. It is better if it is aromatic vegetable oil (from mustard to pumpkin) with vinegar. Sour cream is also used for serving.

Salad of pork, vegetables, green onions and nettles

Advice: nettle can be replaced spinach in any cold salad.

Scrambled eggs or omelet with nettles

Omelette with nettles

Advice: cook scrambled eggs not only with chicken, but also quail eggs.

Soups with nettles

Green cabbage soup

Perhaps the most common recipe with nettles is green cabbage soup. It is important to know here:

• Nettle is most often used not on its own, but in combination with sorrel (it is this and a spoonful of sour cream as a finishing touch that will be responsible for the sourness required for this soup).
• Nettles must either be scalded before chopping, or work with culinary gloves.
• Since nettle is a rather tough herb, you need to pour it into boiling water about ten minutes before cooking (unlike sorrel, which is added as soon as the burner is turned off under the pan).

Nettle cabbage soup

Advice: To avoid losing all the nettle vitamins during cooking, add salt to the soup immediately before serving.

Chorba in Bulgarian

Another option for the first - nettle chorba(Bulgarians call her chorba from kopriv, and Romanians - ciorbă de urzici). Here the role of nettle is different than in cabbage soup - it is not added to the already prepared broth, but, as it were, “creates” it itself. Young nettle leaves are boiled in salted water. Then add a tablespoon of flour, onions, and a pinch of red pepper to the vegetable oil heated in a frying pan. When the flour is browned, add a little nettle broth to the frying pan and, after mixing well, put it all in a pan with boiled nettles. Immediately add either rice (40-50 grams) or cheese. In the first case, the soup is boiled until the rice is ready, in the second, the cheese is boiled quickly (literally 1-2 minutes). At the end, the chorba is acidified with kvass, vinegar or lemon juice.

Nettle chorba

Advice: To add satiety to the chorba (in the case of feta cheese), you can add potatoes, pieces of boiled chicken and/or hard-boiled eggs.

Nettle cream soup

You can cook it from nettles cream soup. At the bottom of the pan, simmer the onion and garlic in vegetable oil, add the prepared vegetable broth, potatoes and nettle leaves, bring to a boil, then simmer over low heat until the potatoes soften. Then all this needs to be crushed or blended and brought to a boil again.

Fennel soup with creamy nettles

Advice: Chicken broth also works well in creamy nettle soup.

Okroshka and botvinya

Slightly boiled nettle can also be added to okroshka. And not only kvass, but also in the “southern” style - with sour milk (kefir, ayran, etc.) In Central Asia, such okroshka in ayran is called chalob and they are often prepared with nettles. What about her? excellent botvinya it turns out...

Nettle botvinya with salmon

Advice: be sure to use ice for serving, which you prepare from tasty drinking water

Nettle soups with hearty additives

Of course, green cabbage soup is a great thing, but no one canceled it nettle soup with chicken meatballs, delicious cabbage soup with buckwheat (not even a soup, but almost a messy porridge) and nettle soup with semolina dumplings.

Nettle soup with meatballs

Advice: experiment with broth, on which you will prepare these first courses. Chicken, vegetable, meat, mushroom - everything must pass inspection.

Pies, pies and pancakes with nettles

With nettle leaves, as with almost any fresh herb, they bake pies. The dough can be yeast, both fresh and flaky. In order to touch the filling, the nettle does not perform solo, but in an ensemble. For example, with rice. Cook the rice separately until almost done. Then simmer the onions over medium heat, add chopped nettles to it, and after five minutes add the rice - adding a little water and stirring several times, bring to readiness. The filling is ready. By the way, you can use boiled millet instead of rice. You can also add a chopped boiled egg. The proportions can be different: someone adds 2 parts of cereal to 3 parts of nettle, someone puts 100 grams of rice and five eggs per kilogram of nettle.

A good combination is obtained from young cabbage and nettles. To test this statement, prepare cabbage pie with nettles.

Cabbage pie with sour cream and nettles

Advice: Add not cereals to nettles, but other spicy or leafy greens. Nettle and green onion filling for pies: simmer for 5 minutes. nettles, then mix with finely chopped green onions and chopped egg. Nettle and spinach pies filling: simmer for 2 minutes. nettles, add spinach and simmer for another 3 minutes. Rinse and dry all greens first. You can also add young cheese like Suluguni or Ossetian to the greens.

Bake with the addition of nettles and other fresh herbs.

Baked Potatoes with Nettle Pesto

Advice: For this pesto, use only dill leaves, the stems are not needed here at all!

BONUS: Of course, we can’t finish our conversation about nettles without something captivating and special. Let it be Italian gnocchi (since we talked about pasta and risotto above). Malfatti with nettles- this is something!

Malfatti with nettles

Advice: You can try serving nettle pesto with these gnocchi, if, of course, you have adjusted its taste to suit you

Everything that has been said above is about leaves. But the stems of young nettles are also edible. They are peeled from the leaves, blanched, then dipped in egg and breading (flour or breadcrumbs) and fried until a beautiful golden color. Delicious! But collecting nettle stems is quite tedious: they are very thin, even for 2-3 servings of stems you need to collect quite a lot.

During the season of young nettles, and greens in general, such fried pies are especially popular! The yeast-free dough on kefir and soda for these pies is prepared very simply and does not require special skills, and the filling of nettles and fried onions with egg has proven itself so well in terms of cooking and taste characteristics that it can be used not only for such It will fit perfectly into pies, pies, and even dumplings! Fried pies with nettles can be served instead of bread; they are especially tasty warm with sour cream! Soft and fragrant, pies with original filling will appeal to everyone without exception! Be sure to prepare it! :)

Baking soda

Wheat flour

Sunflower oil

Bulb onions

Chicken egg

Ground black pepper

Wheat flour

To prepare fried pies with original filling, we will need the following ingredients: wheat flour, kefir, baking soda, young nettle, chicken egg, onion, refined sunflower oil, salt and ground black pepper.

Pour kefir into a deep bowl, add half a teaspoon of baking soda into it and mix. In that hour, kefir will react with soda and foam.

Sift the wheat flour with salt and add it in parts to the kefir.

Knead the dough and collect it into a ball. Cover the pie dough with a clean kitchen towel and set aside while preparing the filling to rest.

To prepare the original filling, we first need two good bunches of young nettles. Wear plastic gloves when working with nettles that have not yet been treated with boiling water to avoid getting burned. So, use scissors to cut the leaves from the stems and place them in a bowl. Pour boiling water over the nettle leaves for 30 seconds, then drain the water, and pour cold water over the nettle leaves for another 30 seconds, then drain the water as much as possible.

Lightly dry the prepared nettle leaves on a paper towel and cut them like green borscht.

In a frying pan in refined sunflower oil, fry the onion, cut into half rings, until transparent.

Break one egg directly into the pan and mix with a fork along with the onion. The fire is strong. Bring the egg to readiness and remove the pan from the stove.

Combine chopped nettle leaves and onion with egg. Add a little salt and ground black pepper to taste.

Mix the filling for fried pies.

Now let's start shaping the pies. Divide the dough into 16 equal parts; from the amount of ingredients specified in the recipe, you will get 16 medium-sized pies. Take one piece of dough and roll it out into a round shape on a floured work surface. To form the pies, I used a device for forming pasties. You can make the pies in whatever shape you like.

Place some of the filling on one side of the dough.

Cover the filling with the other edge of the flatbread.

Pinch the edges tightly to cover the filling. We form other pies in the same way.

As the pies form, fry them in refined sunflower oil on both sides until golden brown. The fire should not be strong. Fried pies with nettles are ready!

Serve the fried pies stuffed with nettles, onions and a fried egg warm with sour cream or whatever you like! Bon appetit!

Delicious pies filled with herbs are a popular pastry at the height of spring and summer. Products are prepared from puff pastry or yeast dough.

Baking with nettles turns out delicious. This plant is healthy and goes well with sorrel, green onions and cottage cheese. Nettle pies are perfect for breakfast and tea.

Jellied pie with nettles

The dough is prepared according to a simple recipe, and in addition to herbs, cream and chicken fillet are added to the filling.

Required ingredients:

• 200 g nettles;
• stack cream;
• 180 g flour;
• five eggs;
• 100 g green onions;
• 50 g fillet;
• 30 g butter;
• 5 g dry yeast;
• loosened - ½ teaspoon;
• half stack milk;
• spices.

Preparation:

1. Dissolve yeast in warm milk, add one egg and softened butter, baking powder with a pinch of salt.
2. Shake the mixture a little, add flour in portions, leave the finished dough warm for half an hour.
3. Chop the onion and remove the nettle leaves from the stems.
4. Cut the fillet into thin slices and fry, add herbs and spices, simmer for another minute.
5. Beat the yolks with spices and cream. Roll out the finished dough and place it on a baking sheet, form the sides.
6. Place the filling on the pie and leave it warm for ten minutes.
7. Pour the filling over the pie and bake for 20 minutes.

The pie contains 1448 kcal. The time it takes to bake the nettle jellied pie is 50 minutes.

Egg and nettle pie

Baking with green onions and eggs is popular during the season of fresh greens. Add young nettle leaves to the filling and the dish will become not only tasty, but also healthy.

The recipe uses ready-made dough.

Ingredients:

• dough packaging;
• 100 g green onions;
• 80 g. nettle;
• four eggs;
• a piece of butter;
• sour cream - three tbsp. spoons.

Cooking steps:

1. Finely dice the boiled eggs, chop the onion and nettles.
2. Combine the ingredients in a bowl, add sour cream and spices. Press the pestle into the filling a little so that the greens are soaked in the sour cream.
3. Roll out one sheet of dough, place it on a baking sheet and distribute the filling evenly.
4. Roll out the second sheet of dough and close the pie.
5. Bake the puff pastry pie with nettles for half an hour.
6. Immediately brush the hot pastries with butter.

Required ingredients:

• two eggs;
• cottage cheese – 300 g;
• one bunch each of spinach and nettles;
• green garlic - a few feathers;
• spices;
• water – 500 ml;
• flour – 900 g;
• two tbsp. l. Sahara;
• butter – 50 g;
• 11 g. trembling. dry;
• salt - two teaspoons.

Step-by-step preparation:

1. Dissolve yeast in warm water, beat sugar with egg and melted butter, add to yeast. Mix flour and salt, add to the mixture, leave the dough warm for 90 minutes.
2. Mix cottage cheese with egg, add chopped onion and spices.
3. Scald the nettle leaves and chop them with spinach, add to the filling and mix well.
4. Place the dough in a layer on a baking sheet, fix the small sides.
5. Place the filling and bake for half an hour.

In total, the pie contains 2128 kcal. It takes two and a half hours to cook.

one tbsp. a spoonful of strong tea leaves;

300 g each of sorrel and nettle;

300 g feta cheese;

½ teaspoon each of pepper and salt;

one teaspoon of rosemary.

Preparation step by step:

1. Chop the greens, scald the nettles, roll out the dough a little and place on a baking sheet so that the sides hang out of the mold. Brush the dough with oil.
2. Sprinkle half the herbs and top with diced cheese, rosemary and spices.
3. Place the rest of the greens on the pie and top with pieces of butter. Sprinkle again with spices and rosemary.
4. Cover the filling with the hanging sides and grease the pie with tea leaves.
5. Bake the pie for 25 minutes and cut when cool.

Baking takes 45 minutes to prepare. It contains 2150 kcal.

Nettle is a widely known weed in our country. There is probably not a single person who has not been burned by nettles at least once. That's why many people avoid it. Well, in vain!

“Nettle is worth seven doctors.”
(folk wisdom)

The scientific name Urtika Diodika consists of two Latin words - “burn” and “dioecious”. But the Russian name “nettle” comes, according to scientists, from the ancient Russian word “koprina” - silk.

Since ancient times, nettles have been used in weaving for many centuries. The chronicles contain records that in the 10th century sails were made from nettle fabric. Nettle fiber was used to spin threads into durable, durable canvas. Both underwear and outerwear were sewn from this canvas.

Probably almost everyone remembers Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale “The Wild Swans”, in which Princess Elsa, on the advice of the fairy, in order to return her brothers, who had been turned into wild swans by their evil stepmother, to their human form, wove chain mail for them from nettle stems.

Nettle fibers were also used to make ropes, strong ropes, and fishing gear. Nettle fiber was used for all these purposes by some peoples until the beginning of the 20th century.

Nettle is a perennial wild plant from the nettle family. It has been known as a medicinal plant since ancient times. Pliny the Elder, Dioscorides, Avicenna and many others wrote about its healing properties.

It is no secret that our ancestors considered young nettles a useful spring addition to the table. And they were absolutely right! The leaves of young nettle contain: vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, K, C; proteins, fiber; citric, lactic, formic, oxalic, succinic organic acids; chlorophyll, tannins, flavonoids, silicic acid and its salts, alkaloids, phytoncides, starch, pantothenic ascorbic acid, coumarins, essential oils, potassium, calcium, iron, copper, barium, boron, molybdenum, strontium, selenium and others.

Nettle is often called “vegetable meat” because it contains more protein than cabbage, lettuce, and carrots, and its nutritional value is not inferior to legumes. And there is more vitamin C in nettles than in lemons and black currants.

I remember how delicious cabbage soup and borscht my grandmothers and mother made from nettles. They added it to salads and to the filling of pies. I myself also really love nettles. But, alas, it’s not so easy to get it in the city.

Therefore, I am glad if one of the summer residents gives me nettles, or if I manage to buy them from grandmothers who bring them in baskets along with mint and garden herbs from villages and dachas.

By the way, it is believed that there is another interpretation of the Russian word nettle. It comes from the verb “krapit”, in Old Slavonic it meant “to mark”, and was due to the fact that nettles were scalded before being eaten, that is, they were sprinkled with boiling water.

If you managed to pick nettles outside the city or at the dacha, then you can create a whole nettle feast from dishes prepared from it!

Some recipes.

Green nettle cabbage soup with fish

You will need:

250 g nettle;
- 200 g sorrel;
- 3 carrots;
- 2-3 onions;
- 300-400 g white fish fillet;
- 10 black peppercorns;
- 3 bay leaves;
- vegetable oil;
- salt, pepper to taste.

Cooking method:

Boil fish fillets separately until cooked.
Wash young nettles, scald, drain, and cut into noodles.

Wash the sorrel leaves and cut them in the same way.
Cut the onion into rings and fry in vegetable oil.

Finely chop the carrots or grate them on a coarse grater, put them in a saucepan along with nettles and sorrel, add boiling water, salt, cook for 10 minutes, add onions from the frying pan, peppercorns, bay leaves, cook until tender.

When serving, place a piece of fish fillet on a plate. Spice up.
You can put boiled veal. Or simply eat cabbage soup as a vegetarian dish with rye bread.

Dumplings with nettles

You will need:

Dumpling dough.

For minced meat:

300 g of young nettle leaves;
- 1 onion;
- 3 tbsp. spoons of vegetable oil.

Cooking method:

Chop the onion and fry until light golden brown in a frying pan in vegetable oil.

Prepare the minced meat: – pour boiling water over the nettle leaves, squeeze, finely chop and add to the onion, fry, cool, add salt and pepper. Place the minced meat on the dough circles, form dumplings and cook as usual in boiling water.

Young nettle leaf paste

You will need:

50 g cottage cheese;
- 50 g hard cheese;
- 1.5-2 tbsp. spoons of chopped nettle;
- 1 tbsp. spoon of chopped greens;
- salt to taste.

Cooking method:

Grate the cheese, grate the cottage cheese, mix with chopped herbs, nettles and dill, add salt, mix well and beat.

Pilaf with nettles

You will need:

350 g nettle;
- 200 g of rice;
- 2 onions;
- vegetable oil;
- approximately 2 glasses of water or broth;
- salt, pepper to taste.

Cooking method:

Wash the rice, soak it, then put it in boiling water in a saucepan with a thick bottom. Add chopped onion and vegetable oil.

After about ten minutes, add pre-scalded and chopped nettles. Salt and pepper. When the rice has absorbed all the liquid, cover the pan with a lid and place in a preheated oven on low heat for 25 minutes.

Nettle pies filling

You will need:

400 g nettle;
- 1 glass of rice;
- 2-4 eggs;
- butter;
- salt, pepper to taste.

Cooking method:

Rinse the rice, boil until tender, without boiling, place in a sieve.

Scald the nettles and chop finely. Hard boil the eggs, chop them. Mix everything carefully, add salt and pepper. Add melted butter.

Pies are baked from yeast or puff pastry.

Nettle salad

You will need:

300 g nettle;
- 60 g green onions;
- 10 g dill;
- 30 g parsley;
- 1-2 eggs;
- 2 tbsp. spoons of chopped walnuts;
- vegetable oil;
- salt, pepper to taste.

Cooking method:

Wash the nettle leaves, boil for 5 minutes in salted water, place in a sieve, and let the water drain. Finely chop, add chopped green onions, parsley, dill, hard-boiled chopped eggs

Mix well, add salt, pepper, and season with vegetable oil. Sprinkle chopped walnuts on top.

Kefir with nettle

You will need:

- 2 tbsp. spoons of chopped fresh leaves of young nettle;
- 1 tbsp. a spoonful of chopped green onions;
- 2 glasses;
- 1/2 glass of milk;
- salt to taste.

Cooking method:

Mix kefir with milk, add onion, nettle, salt and beat in a mixer.

Nettle cures many diseases.

For gastritis and stomach ulcers

Grind fresh nettle leaves. 1 tbsp. Pour a glass of boiling water over a spoon, boil for 15 minutes in a water bath, cool, strain. Take 1/4 cup 3-4 times a day half an hour before meals.

And finally, from the dream book:
“If you dream that you are walking along a thicket of nettles and are not burned by it, the dream promises prosperity.”