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Young Nettle Soup (Russian)
Wash and clean 1 quart each of young nettles, spinach, and wood sorrel, cook in boiling water with a little salt till tender and press through coarse sieve. Fry a thinly sliced onion in 2 tablespoons butter till it begins to color; then add the green purée, cook together, stir and slowly mix in 1 tablespoon flour. Gradually add 2 quarts beef stock, bring to boiling point, lower heat and let simmer. Drop in 5 or 6 smoked sausages, whole or cut into slices. Simmer an hour, skim off fat and just before serving add 1 cup sour cream, or not. Halves of picnic eggs, plain or stuffed, are good company for this.
A spring soup built on foraged greens, thickened lightly with flour and enriched at the table. The greens are the whole point, and everything else is adjustable.
- Handling nettlesPick and wash them with gloves; the sting is in hollow hairs that collapse the moment they hit boiling water. Once blanched they are entirely harmless and taste like a deeper, mineral spinach.
- "Young" is not decorativeUse the top few leaves of young plants, before flowering. Older nettles turn fibrous and coarse.
- Measuring the greensA quart here means loosely packed raw leaves. The three quarts cook down to a small quantity of puree.
- Wood sorrelThis is Oxalis, the small clover-leaved plant with the sharp lemon taste, not garden sorrel (Rumex), though either works and garden sorrel is easier to buy. It supplies the acidity; if you skip it, finish with lemon juice. Both sorrels and spinach are high in oxalic acid, so this is a soup for occasional eating rather than a weekly habit.
- Sieve or blenderThe coarse sieve was there to catch stems and midribs. A blender followed by a single pass through a medium strainer does the same work in a fraction of the time.
- The sausagesSmoked sausage means a firm cured link -- kielbasa, Polish or Ukrainian style, or a good smoked garlic sausage. Fully cooked sausage does not need an hour; add it for the last 20 minutes if you want it to keep its texture, and let the soup itself simmer the rest of the time.
- Sour creamStir a ladle of hot soup into the cup of sour cream first, then return it to the pot off the heat. Added cold and directly, it will break.
- Picnic eggsHard-boiled eggs, halved, plain or deviled. They are standard garnish for Russian green soups rather than an eccentricity.
- YieldTwo quarts of stock plus the greens and sausage gives roughly six to eight bowls.