Interesting video on nettles.

[Ripped Barbarian]

Here's an interesting video and nutritional breakdown on nettles.

[Video] Frank Cook On Nettle (Urtica dioica) As Wild Food

They should be coming up in a month or so, which is the best time to get them when they are tender shoots.

Nutrition from that page:

Aluminium: 13.8 mg
Ash (total): 8.4%
Calcium: 2900 mg
Calories: 0.60 /gm
Chromium: 0.39 mg
Cobalt: 1.32 mg
Crude Fibre: 11.0%
Dietary Fibre: 43.0%
Fat: 2.3%
Iron: 4.2 mg
Magnesium: 860 mg
Manganese: 0.78 mg
Niacin: 5.20 mg
Phosphorous: 447 mg
Potassium: 1750 mg
Protein: 25.2%
Riboflavin: 0.43 mg
Selenium: 0.22 mg
Silicon: 1.03 mg
Sodium: 4.90 mg
Thiamine: 0.54 mg
Tin: 2.7 mg
Vitamin A: 15,700 IU
Vitamin C: 83.0 mg
Zinc: 0.47 mg

Amazing!
Especially amazing in the 'credit crunch' when organic veg costs a couple £ a kilo, you can collect this stuff from the wilds without pesticide or fertilizer for free, fill a car boot with the tops, cook and freeze into portions.

[cheef]

Wow

[Luffers]

How do they taste...... nettely?

[Ripped Barbarian]

When boiled they taste just like spinach, they are slightly more fibrous but when picked as young shoots they are almost identical to spinach.

Go well in stews as well.

[hailtotheking]

I've never actually eaten them, but i buy dried organic nettles from Neils Yard, and brew them in a tea with peppermint and rosehip, and it tastes very good.

I remember being taught at school about how it was the favourite beverage of the early anglo-saxons.

[dom_]

Excellent! Nearly time to get some gloves and bin bags and go to the woods.

Nothing like finding your own food then cooking it.
We have loads of woods around here should really read up on it as the only things i know of are wild garlic and some berries etc.

[Gareth83]

freeze then cook would be a better idea RC, otherwise you'd have to cook them twice if you like them warm...

[Ripped Barbarian]

Quote

freeze then cook would be a better idea RC, otherwise you'd have to cook them twice if you like them warm...

A fair point that'd you'd at least have to re-heat them but:

-Cooking them first makes them much more compact.
-Freezing from fresh makes vegetables mushy upon thawing due to higher water content within the uncooked plant.

[Gareth83]

I would have guessed cooking them first would make them bulkier due to the water content freezing

reheating them again would make them even mushier...

I certainly don't mind steaming my broccoli, cauliflower, mixed veg having been frozen from fresh. Certainly not 'mushy'

[TRC]

Interesting info there.

My only brush with nettles was getting a group of 10 year olds when I was about 15, to dive into nettle bushes and rub it in their faces and arms to be manly enough to play rugby with us.