I looked around a bit and found out that Stinging Nettles are actually well known, in certain circles, as valuable herbs and for their nutritional value. They’re rich in vitamins, minerals, protein, make excellent fertilzer, and when they’re dried the make a great livestock feed.

Here’s another video on nettles and here’s an article by Euell Gibbons, with several nettle recipes.

Speaking of recipes, Mary sent us this one. She’s from Italy and it seems that the nettle is a pretty popular herb over there.

Stinging nettle Frittata

Time: About 30 minutes

Ingredients for 4 people: (Here’s a conversion chart for the units used)

• 6 eggs,
• 200 gr. of stinging nettle, basil and parsley finely chopped,
• 50 gr. of grated parmesan,
• 5 spoons of extra virgin olive oil,
• salt and pepper.

*Preparation*: Clean, wash, and dry (use clean paper towel) the stinging nettle (use a pair of gloves)

In a non-stick fry pan, heat up 2 spoon of extra virgin olive oil adding the fresh and dry stinging nettle, and let them to absorb the oil fragrance for 5 minutes (use gentle cooking.)

In the meantime in a large bowl put in the 6 eggs and beat them till become creamy.

Once ready, add the grated parmesan cheese, parsley, basil, a pinch of salt, a pinch of pepper. Mix everything well and add in the stinging nettle that you have previously cooked.

Once again, mix it all together and after you have heated it up add the remained 3 spoons of extra virgin olive oil, pour all in the fry pan and cook it well on both side. To cook it on both sides, use a large salad plate or the fry pan lead to turn it on the other side.

As an alternative, if you don’t want to fry it, you can bake it in a pre-heated oven for about 10 minutes. Use a non-stick oven dish and it works better if you have oiled the bottom part of the dish before poring in the ingredients.

The above “frittata” can be enjoyed with some mounded pears, fresh figs, and some soft blue cheese…some rye bread and some white wine will do the rest

A little secret…You can use stinging nettle as an alternative to spinach whenever “spinach” has been mentioned!

Now you can do it in the real world. The people at LearningHerbs.com have a video for you, in anticipation of their new site. The video shows you how to collect and eat Stinging Nettle.

No mention is made of what heals or buffs you get from eating this, and yes, he does recommend adding it to your salad. In place of the spinach.

Here’s the video

Here’s the site

Enjoy your salad.