Nettle Soup

Pomegranate paste is in every version, and the water the nettles boiled in is kept back as a tea.

Vegan.

Ingredients

• 500 g young stinging nettle tops
• 3 tablespoons pomegranate paste, or molasses
• 150 g chickpeas, soaked overnight
• 100 g green lentils
• 100 g short-grain rice
• 200 g spinach, chopped
• 60 g coriander, chopped
• 1 leek, sliced
• 2 onions, chopped
• 6 cloves garlic, sliced
• 1 1/2 teaspoons turmeric
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 80 ml sunflower oil

Method

1. POMEGRANATE PASTE IS IN EVERY VERSION, AND THE WATER THE NETTLES BOILED IN IS KEPT BACK AS A TEA. Both come straight from the page and the second one is counter-intuitive. Its article lists the ingredients that every variation of this soup contains -- nettles, garlic, onion, chickpeas, turmeric, rice, lentils, greens, oil, and either pomegranate paste or pomegranate molasses -- so the sourness is not optional seasoning, it is part of the definition. And the nettle cooking water, which any cook would reach for as stock, is instead saved and drunk as a tea for medicinal purposes. So blanch the nettles, pour that liquid into a jug for later, and build the soup on fresh water.
2. THE NETTLES ARE HANDLED WITH GLOVES AND BLANCHED FIRST. Young tops only, picked over. Gloves until they have been in boiling water: two minutes is enough to destroy the sting completely. Then drained, with the liquid kept, and chopped.
3. THEY GO IN LATE, LIKE SPINACH. Blanched nettle added for the last fifteen minutes. It behaves like spinach and turns to dark threads if given an hour.
4. THE PASTE GOES IN NEAR THE END AND IS TASTED. Three tablespoons for the last ten minutes. Pomegranate paste varies in strength; add two, taste, then decide. Added early its acid slows the pulses softening.
5. THE CHICKPEAS AND LENTILS ARE COOKED ON DIFFERENT CLOCKS. Chickpeas soaked overnight then an hour and a quarter; lentils twenty-five minutes. Start the chickpeas first and add the lentils when they are nearly done.
6. IT IS THICK AND THE RICE IS PART OF WHY. A hundred grams of short-grain for the last twenty-five minutes, which with the pulses gives the body an ash is meant to have.
7. TWO LOCAL HERBS ARE NAMED AND NOT SUBSTITUTED. Its article lists zolang and anarijeh among the optional greens, alongside spinach, Persian leek and coriander. The first two are not sold here and no equivalent is offered on this page; spinach, leek and coriander are what the list above uses.
8. THE OPTIONAL ADDITIONS ARE WORTH KNOWING. Its article allows pinto or fava beans, beetroot and butternut squash. Beetroot in particular changes the colour completely and pushes the soup sweeter against the pomegranate.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Iran · All recipes