Spring dinner - nettle soup and rhubarb pie

No, this isn’t a study in how to abuse a compost.

This is the corner of our garden that cannot be seen from the house. In such, it has also become the collection of plant matter that neither my wife nor myself have the energy to take care of. Leaves, sticks, dead houseplants - they all end up here.

And while neither we or our neighbors really appreciate this corner of our yard, a few other inhabitants do. The hedgehog family was spotted roaming around the neighborhood last week so, while out of hibernation, they aren’t home right now. You can, however, just make out our star in the central upper part of this picture.

A better view (sans leaves):



These rhubarb plants have been here for years and years. They weren’t doing too hot when we moved in which is largely the reason the “compost” ended up where it did. However, 5 years after installing our heap of lawn refuse, they are very, very pleased.

And, one of the true highlights of spring for me is harvesting the year’s first batch.

This fresh in my mind, I swung by a patch of woods when biking home from lunch with my children. Our eagle eyes managed to find a great deal of tender nettles:





We actually found a lot more but I had forgotten my gloves and my quickly burning fingertips only allowed for this much…

Could there be better inspiration for a spring dinner? Nettle soup and rhubarb pie.

Start with the pie.

Clean the rhubarb stalks. The slugs had already taken their toll on some of these.



I needed a quick and easy pie so I assembled the following:



Butter (10 tablespoons), 1/3 of a vanilla pod plus 1 teaspoon sugar, the rhubarb (about 1 ½ pounds), one cup of flour, 1/3 cup sugar and 2 tablespoons corn or potato starch

Scrape the vanilla pod and add the seeds to the flour and the teaspoon of sugar. Cut the butter into cubes and put it in the bowl with the flour mixture.



Quickly pinch the butter into the flour until it is well distributed.



Dump the mixture into a baking dish and roughly form it into a pie bottom.



Add the 1/3 cup of sugar to the rhubarb and dump in the starch. Mix well and dump the rhubarb mixture onto the pie crust (or layer the rhubarb and sugar mixed with starch as I did).



Bake at 425 degrees for 25 minutes.

While the pie is baking, assemble the ingredients for the nettle soup:



Cream (¼-1/3 cup), 2 tablespoons each of flour and butter, about 3 cups veal stock and the nettles (about a quart). (Ignore the onion - I didn’t end up using it…).

Bring the stock to a boil and add the nettles.



Cover and simmer for about 5 minutes.



Add the cream and puree. Season with salt and pepper.



I served the soup with soft-boiled egg halves, some homemade smoked salmon, lightly whipped cream and a few drops of truffle oil.





The soup was very mild and very tasty. The nettles have a woodsy, grassy and hay-like aroma and flavor.

Your pie should be done by now:



Serve the rhubarb pie with softened ice cream or a little whipped cream.



Happy spring, everyone! We made it through yet another winter!

Having just bought a large bunch of rhubarb yesterday, I couldn't resist this post. (Not that I'm ever able to resist much of anything that Bridgestone posts about....) Now, given that I've done so during Passover, I wonder about a matzoh crust for the pie.... Or maybe the better solution would simply be to make a conserve. I don't suppose there's a Swedish recipe for rhubarb conserve? (In checking cookbooks yesterday, it simply didn't occur to me to check the Scandinavian books; I never realized rhubarb was popular there. Actually, I've little idea where is IS popular, come to that.) Either way, the pie and nettles both look inviting and I'm in your debt once again for scrumptious-looking food. Thanks!

interesting. the nettles we have around here look like this:

My community garden plot is neighbored by one whose caretaker actually grows nettles for consumption; perhaps it's a bit early - I haven't seen them - but next time she presses some on me (as she often does) I'll know what to do with them!

OTOH, the neighboring townhouse to mine has a huge rhubarb plant that I envy, but I haven't had the courage to ask for some. My Grandmother grew enormous rhubarb plants and used to make strawberry-rhubarb pie.

Lovely post, as usual, Bridgestone!

Thank you everyone for the kind words!

Re: the nettles. I wouldn't put too much into apparent differences yet, teatpuller. These were truly the first-of-the-year sprouts and were only a few inches tall at most. Your picture looks just like I remember these looking mid-summer. On the other hand, I don't know too much about nettles and certainly wouldn't discount there being several (or even many) different species.

Re: rhubarb. Rhubarb is pretty popular over here. I'll try to post a few more Swedish preparations or rhubarb as the season goes on. Here's one I've already (semi-)posted about. Perhaps it is well suited to the climate and/or our clay-rich, acidic soil? Mhays: could you convince your neighbors to divide their plant? My experience is that they divide and transplant extremely well.

It might be easier to get it at the grocery store...but, maybe I can cajole her with some perennials when I divide mine...

Teatpuller, IIRC, what I'm offered yearly looks like your photo.

Bridgestone wrote:

I served the soup with soft-boiled egg halves, some homemade smoked salmon, lightly whipped cream and a few drops of truffle oil.

Bridgestone, looking at the finished soup, it looks as if you pureed it between these two photos. Is that correct, or do the nettles just cook down to bits?

Completely correct, LAZ. In a fit of lazy "Swenglish" I wrote "mix" when I meant "puree".

I'll go in and amend the recipe. Thanks for looking so closely!

Entranced by some fine looking rhubarb at the Evanston Farmers Market:



and further inspired by Bridgestone's rhubarb pie, Sunday's dinner had a lovely finish:


There was a residual coating of cornstarch on the top that didn't detract from the overall finished product. Thanks to Bridgestone for the recipe!

Actually, it feels like I should be thanking you, The GP! Thanks for trying the recipe and certainly thanks for posting your results!

I also ended up with a residual layer of cornstarch when I layered the rhubarb and cornstarch mixture. And, like you mention, it really wasn't noticeable when eaten.

I've since remade this recipe (lots of rhubarb this year...) and have started mixing the cornstarch mixture with the chopped rhubarb. This seems to distribute things a little more evenly and I didn't end up with that powdery coating after baking. Either way works.

Once again, thanks for posting, The GP!

Bridgestone-

I mixed the cornstarch mixture with the chopped rhubarb and you see my results. The pie was rather runny even with the cornstarch. I needed to bake it a few minutes longer next time as the crust wasn't done enough -- that might help the runniness. None of this detracted from the end result. Mr. X and I finished off the pie last night.

I miss the days when my folks had a place up in Wisconsin with a few monster rhubarb plants. I could get as much as I wanted and could regularly whip up a quick pie, bread or muffins. I am jealous of your rhubarb bounty!

-The GP