Radish and nettle curry

Whilst weeding our main allotment a few days ago, I was considering pulling out these nettles. I decided however to leave them where they are. They have a great deal of young, green growth on them, making them much more edible than older, more woody leaves and stems. At that point though, I had no specific plans for them until yesterday when I needed to address a modest radish glut. I searched out radish curry recipes having remembered seeing some last year. I found some that included spinach which we are not growing this year.

We have found that nettles can be an interesting substitute for nettles in some recipes. They both tend to reduce down when cooked. So I adapted the various recipes I found and came up with my own for radish and nettle curry.



Ingredients are about 400g of potatoes, 200g radishes, 2 onions, 6-7 small to medium tomatoes, the leaves from the radishes, a small bag of fresh nettle leaves, 6 fresh chillies, 4 cloves garlic, tablespoon of curry powder, half teaspoon each of cummin seeds and mustard seeds, pinch of turmeric and a teaspoon of honey (we used some very runny honey that we took off one of our hives last year).

Into a pan put some oil and heat it up. Add the dry ingredients, the garlic and honey and simmer them for 3-4 minutes. Chop and add all the other ingredients (no need to chop the nettle leaves), put the lid on the pan and simmer for 40 minutes, until the radishes and potatoes are soft. Stir often. Then serve with a naan bread.