The World That Was - Medieval Irish Nettle Soup

Hello and Welcome to The World That Was!

Today, I'll be taking a look at a staple of Irish medieval cuisine: the humble nettle soup. Late spring and early Summer is the ideal time to make this dish, as the nettle leaves used here won't have matured fully, and retain a soft, lighter texture than older woodier leaves. Plus they won't sting your hands as badly as mature nettles. Plenty of Irish families have their own takes on this recipe, and this is influenced by my family's take on the tradition!

In any case, let's now take a look at The World That Was! Follow along with my YouTube video, above!

Ingredients

2-3 cups nettle leaves

1 onion, minced

2 cloves garlic (or two bulbs of wild garlic, minced)

chives (for decoration)

butter

1/2 cup milk/double cream

500ml water or stock

salt

pepper

Method

1 - Chop and cook the Garlic and Onion

To begin with, we need to peel and chop a whole onion, before tossing this into a pot with some melted butter. You can of course use oil, but dairy products was (and still is) a major part of Irish culinary traditions - so try and use Irish butter here if you can.

In any case, let your onion sauté away for a couple of minutes until it turns translucent and fragrant. When it hits this point, toss in a couple of cloves of crushed garlic - or some wild garlic if you have any!

While this is cooking in the butter over a medium heat, go chop your nettles.

2 - Deal with the Nettles

Much like any other leafy ingredient on this show, we're going to ball this up and chop it roughly with a knife. Be careful, as the leaves and stems of this plant has stinging fibres (which will get denatured and broken down when it's cooking).

Nettles act like spinach when you're cooking them, so have about 2-3 times more than what you think you'll need on hand. Add your chopped nettles into the pot, and let them cook down before adding the rest!

3 - Cook Soup

When all of your nettle leaves have cooked down, pour in 500ml of soup stock (or water) into the pot. Then, toss in about a half a cup of whole milk, or double cream if you have it. Mix this together gently, before putting this onto a high heat. Bring it to a rolling boil, before turning it down to low until it simmers.

Let the whole thing simmer away for about an hour.

Serve up hot in a small bowl, garnish with some chives or seasonal herbs, and dig in!

The finished soup is very light and flavourful, but quite filling for what it is! It's another variation on a medieval pottage, with ingredients that could have been easily foraged in the spring and summer. As it can be made with only a few ingredients, it could have formed the basis of more complex dishes - such as the addition of more vegetables, or meat products. 

Given how little the dish has changed from antiquity to modernity, it's likely that the basics of this soup go back to pre-historic Irish culinary traditions.

Either way, the soup is perfect served warm or cold - very suitable for the changeable Irish weather!