Purple Dead Nettle Butter Recipe
~ Purple Dead Nettle ~ Lamium Purpureum
Such a beautiful yet understated plant. With her gorgeous orchid like little flowers, delicately detailed furry leaves, and abundance during the cooler seasons this is a lovely garden companion which attracts bees into the garden to feed on the nectar rich flowers all through winter.
Purple Dead Nettle is believed to be highly nutritious, abundant in vitamins, especially high in Vitamin C, Iron & fibre.
Medicinally the plant has been used to boost the immune system and is said to have antihistamine anti inflammatory, anti bacterial, antifungal, diuretic & astringent properties.
Given the astringent properties, the leaves can be used in first aid as a poultice applied to open wounds to stop bleeding. It’s also used for excessive bleeding during menstruation & hemorraging.
Dead Nettle can be used as a blood purifier which makes it good for use with skin rashes & eczema.
You can enjoy Dead Nettle in a herbal tea, although beware that drinking too much can have laxative effects.
Given the antihistamine properties, a Dead Nettle tea can be taken to enhance your bodies resistance to seasonal allergies.
Most gardeners rip these gems from their garden, believing them to be 'weeds', but I dare you to have a little nibble, and you'll discover a very unique flavor profile. Often described as mushroomy, earthy, grassy, astringent, even minty or spicy, for me it often tastes like dirt! I've noticed a lot of difference in flavor through the seasons & prefer it during wet season flourishes.
Making Dead Nettle Butter has been one of the highlights of my foraging workshops, I was pleasantly suprised when it was a total hit!
You'll learn all about Purple Dead Nettle in my online foraging course & also in my Wet Season Foraging Guide.
Making an infused butter with the Dead Nettle leaves & flowers is a really simple way to use Dead Nettle in your kitchen and then of course you can slather the butter 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!