Foraging - Nettle Hummus & Elderflower Tea

27th June, 2019
by Julian | 2 Min Read
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Welcome to the latest news-post with our resident forager Brigit-Anna McNeill.

Here she shares her recipes for Nettle Hummus and Elderflower Tea.


To make Nettle Hummus...

Make sure your nettles are from a patch where they are young. A patch that has been strimmed recently is a good place to pick from as the nettles won't have grown tall and flowered or seeded yet. 

Make sure you only use plants that you are 100 percent sure of their identity - never just wing it. 
 

Ingredients

  • A tin of chickpeas drained
  • Juice of one lemon
  • a large pinch or two of sea salt
  • A large spattering of ground black pepper
  • A small teaspoon of tahini
  • A good slug or two of olive oil
  • One or two cloves of garlic
  • Two handfuls of nettles that haven't yet seeded or flowered. Using just the tops containing the first 6 leaves.** You could also use sorrel, ground elder, ox eye daisy leaves, dandelion leaves or wood sorrel - but be sure to correctly identify any plant you use.


Method

Place all the ingredients into a blender and blend or pulse until smooth. The action of blending will take away the nettles' sting, making it fine to eat. 

If you dont have a blender you can mix and smoosh everything together and separately roll and press the nettles within a tea towel to break the sting and then chop the nettles finely and stir them into the other ingredients.


 

Elderflower tea

There are so many beautiful Elderflowers out. 

I find the simplest and easiest way to enjoy them is to put them straight into my teapot and make a sweet and summery flavoured tea. 

You can also dry them if you lay them on paper or in a basket without them over lapping and in a few days take the dry flowers and put them into a jar to save for when you feel the calling for a summery sweet blessing in your pot. 

*Make sure you are aware of how to ID Elder trees and do not mistake the sometimes dangerous carrot family flowers for those of the Elder trees.


Brigit-Anna is a foraging retreat leader on our Woodland Retreats here and she also leads wild food and foraging days as part of our events at Sharpham