Purple Dead Nettle Butter Recipe
Purple Dead Nettle Butter Recipe
One of the favorite wild snacks that we tasted during my Foraging Workshop today a Dead Nettle Butter. Inspired by the many amazing recipes from " Forage - Wild Plants to Gather, Cook and Eat" by Liz Knight, I created a Purple Dead Nettle Butter (as well as an Onion Weed butter).
Dead Nettle (Lamium Purpureum) is an abundant Autumn/Winter weed which is prolific at the moment. You'll find a whole article about Purple/Red Dead Nettle on my website under 'Articles'. I'm always looking for new ways to cook with this little weed, which seems to have a varying flavor profile. In hot months I find it ridiculously astringent and can't stand it. But the fresh young leaves today tasted very mushroomy & earthy. Others described it as grassy, salty and even bitter. Seems to vary for everyone, and even between seasons.
This butter is a really simple way to use Dead Nettle in your kitchen and then of course you can slather onto anything that you like with butter!! (bread, crackers, pasta etc).
Purple Dead Nettle Butter Recipe:
Gently melt 100g of good quality butter in a saucepan over a low heat. Once melted tip the butter into a blender with about 50g of roughly chopped Dead Nettle - flowers, stalks, leaves included. Add the zest of about 1/4 lemon, + salt & pepper. Blend until well combined and smoothe. Tip into a dish (I used a little teacup) and put in the fridge for a few hours or overnight to solidify. Now it's ready to serve!
I imagine this would also be good with some garlic thrown in, just imagine, Dead Nettle Garlic Bread, yum!