Nettle pesto fresh from the garden and Crunchy Pesto-topped Salmon with Wholewheat Pesto Spaghetti and Wilted Chard

Nettles keep popping up in-between the chard and radishes in our raised bed, so I thought I’d put them to good use. I know it’s easy to make nettle soup, but I was in the mood for something a bit gutsier, so I made nettle pesto.

Nettles are extremely nutritious and particularly rich in vitamin C, iron, calcium, magnesium and nitrogen. They taste a bit like spinach and give a deeper, earthier flavour than traditional basil pesto.

You need to blanch nettles before eating to eliminate the stinging chemicals. The usual advice is to use the tips of fresh spring nettles, before they become tough and flower, at which point they can do serious damage to your urinary tract, so stay away. Nettles are also really important for wildlife, especially butterflies as caterpillars feed on them, and ladybirds, which lay their eggs on them, so it’s good to leave a few nettles alone if they’re doing no harm in a corner of the garden or on your allotment.

 I picked summer nettles, but they were still young, so perfectly good for eating, and I don’t really want a raised bed full of nettle plants. One thing’s for sure – you need to wear thick gardening gloves or a good pair of marigolds to do the picking.

I like the aromatic kick of basil with white spaghetti, but I think nettle pesto goes really well with wholewheat pasta and stands up better to the stronger flavours of meat and fish. I used mine as a simple spaghetti sauce and also to top some beautiful, oily salmon. Delicious.

For the nettle pesto

50g young nettles

50g Parmesan

10 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

50g ground almonds

4 garlic cloves

juice of 1 lemon

salt and pepper

For the salmon

4 salmon fillets (I buy MSC-certified)

4 tbsp stale breadcrumbs (I use up old wholemeal sourdough)

salt and pepper

wholewheat spaghetti, to serve (about 75g per adult serving), plus a few pitted black olives

chard, to serve

Preheat the oven to 200°C/180°C fan/gas 6.

Bring a large pan of water to a rolling boil and cook your pasta according to the instructions on the packet.

Bring a small pan of water to the boil and blanch your nettles for 1 minute. Make sure you wear your gloves when you put them in the pan. Have a bowl of iced water ready and when your minute’s up, plunge the nettles into the cold water to stop them cooking. Try to hold on to some of your cooking water. Drain the nettles thoroughly. You might need to squeeze out the excess water, but you can do this with your fingers now as they won’t sting.

Tip your chard into the boiling water you’ve saved from the nettles, put the lid on and steam until wilted and soft.

To make the pesto simply whizz up the cooked nettles with all the other ingredients in a food-processor and season to taste.

To make the crunchy salmon, top each fillet with 1 tbsp of pesto, 1 tbsp breadcrumbs, and season. Bake for 10–12 minutes until just cooked through. I didn't salt Sidney’s fillet and I left it in the oven for a few minutes longer, just to be on the safe side.

Stir the rest of the pesto through the cooked spaghetti with a few chopped black olives. Serve all the elements separately, or do it the proper way and flake the fish, chop the chard and mix it all up together, which is actually what I did for Sidney.