Using what nature has to offer, food stylist Malin Fränberg and photographer Philip Nordin from Matbyrån Sthlm created and served a lovely soup with sourdough bread and herb butter during our photo shoot in the forest for the article The Perfect Plate. We treat you to the recipes here!
Wild garlic and nettle soup
(Serves 4)
50 g nettles
2 shallots
500 ml water
200 ml cream
100 ml white dry wine
1 chicken stock cube
1 tbsp corn flour
1 tbsp lemon juice
10 wild garlic leaves
½ tsp salt
1 pinch white pepper
Clean the nettles. Peel and finely chop the onion. Put the nettles and onions in a pan. Add the water, cream, wine and stock cube. Bring to the boil.
Mix the corn flour and 1 tbsp water. Whisk the mixture into the soup, boil for 3 min. Remove the pan from the heat and add the wild garlic. Blend into a smooth soup.
Season with salt and pepper and top with wild garlic oil and ‘onion flowers’ if desired.
Herb butter with wild garlic
250 g butter at room temperature
100 ml rapeseed oil or unflavoured olive oil
1 large bunch of wild garlic
Salt to taste
Rinse, cut off the stalks and roughly chop the wild garlic. Pour the oil, salt and a little lemon juice into a blender. Add the wild garlic and mix until everything is well combined and the oil is almost smooth.
Place the butter in a bowl, pour in the oil and whisk until the butter is fluffy. Serve.
Sourdough bread from ancient grains
100 g sourdough
350 g water
500 g Öland wheat flour or flour from another ancient grain
10 g salt
Mix the sourdough into the water and then add the flour. Mix everything together and let it stand for one hour before adding the salt. Then leave at room temperature for 5–8 hours, folding the dough every hour.
Flour a baking board and turn out the dough. Fold it up and transfer it to a proofing basket.
Leave to rest in the fridge overnight. Put a cast iron pan in the oven at 270 degrees C. When the oven is hot, take out the sourdough and transfer it to baking paper. Cut it with a razor blade to help the bread crack in the right places.
Transfer to the cast iron pan. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes with the lid on, then reduce the temperature to 260 and bake for a further 20 minutes without the lid.
Bon appétit!