Garlic mustard and dead nettle recipes

Greetings folks! I'm looking for more help in finding more ways to my recipes more healthier and less of sodium and oil. Are the any other ways that these are cooked especially in ancient times? I know dead nettles are used for tea and medicine, but what about for food? And could garlic mustard be used for stir fries? Please shoot me on this board for more ideas to exchange. Peace!

Good question! Garlic mustard, I think, is best in soups because it dissolves the bitterness. In stir fries, the bitterness is concentrated. They can also be good in salads and go well with vinegar. Dead nettle I don’t have much experience with.

I suppose you could also boil the garlic mustard, and separate it out into tea or pot-liquor, and then greens to stir fry.

Good morning! Wanna find out how Europeans cook their garlic mustard centuries ago. Any recipes from the Middle Ages or in pioneer times?

I made pesto with garlic mustard and nettles yesterday! (Not dead nettles but stinging nettles). It is delicious!

My pesto wouldn't fulfil your plan of less oil and less salt, but you can make it how you like it. I just washed the nettles and garlic-mustard and dried them well in a salad spinner. Put them in the blender with olive oil, walnuts, salt, and a little lemon and puree till smooth. I intentionally didn't add garlic or cheese because it's my first time eating garlic mustard so I wanted to really see how it tastes. It's good! The second batch may have had a higher proportion of garlic-mustard, since it tasted slightly bitter, but once it's spread on pasta or bread I don't find it bitter at all, only delicious.

I think I used about 3 or 4 parts nettles to 1 part garlic-mustard.

I make similar purees all summer out of different greens as they come up. Last summer I went on a long jag of pesto made of tarragon, anise hyssop and fennel. My notes say I was adding garlic that's I pressed in the garlic press, sunflower seeds, olive oil, lemon juice and salt, but no cheese. It was delicious and I was also taking it to friends. The fennel had gone to seed previously so it was coming up everywhere and I had to pull up or cut down lots of it. The anise hyssop is profuse, and though I use a little in tea and salad, there's really a lot, so that was a good use too. The tarragon isn't so over abundant but was a nice addition.

I've made a similar one in the past with mostly cilantro, a little mint, peanuts freshly toasted on a pan, and a little fresh green chilli pepper. Good stuff!

Very yummy! Could we add those to lasagna or spaghetti? Could garlic mustard be regular mustard of its own?

Dead nettle is something to be used as an ingredient, not the feature of a dish. Best is the top 3 inches of the flowering portion. We always add a hot spice to anything with dead nettle. Hot sauce, red pepper flakes, fresh jalapenos, whatever is handy.

Sorry, no actual recipe. Think about recipes that use spinach. But use  bit less of dead nettle.

Understand the situation about the dead nettle, though I'd like to try some with soup or salad. You tried some in tea or medicine? If have, then what's your experience with them?

Blake Lenoir wrote:Very yummy! Could we add those to lasagna or spaghetti? Could garlic mustard be regular mustard of its own?

Yes, yes, I use my random pestos on pasta. I also spread random pesto on bread, sometimes with cheese and lettuce, sometimes not. I've used some on fish.  I've thinned it out and used it as salad dressing.

About your question about using garlic mustard as regular mustard, do you mean mustard paste made from mustard seeds? Or do you mean mustard greens? I think the one time I've used garlic mustard, it was more bitter than most mustard greens I've grown, so I wouldn't use it alone as I do mustard greens.

 I was trying to find out if anybody made mustard sauce from garlic mustard before. I never made mustard before. Has anybody made some before from the regular greens? Which ingredients I need to make my mustard healthier? Thanks!

Like the yellow mustard from the grocery? That is made by grinding up the seeds and making a paste. Maybe using vinegar for the liquid? My mustard makes black seed though. I don't use the condiment often enough to try making my own from the black seed.