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Jim Dixon wrote about food for WW for more than 20 years, but these days most of his time is spent at his olive oil-focused specialty food business Wellspent Market. Jim’s always loved to eat, and he encourages his customers to cook by sending them recipes every week through his newsletter. We’re happy to have him back creating some special dishes just for WW readers.
Back in 1889 chef Jules Alciatore, son of the founder and namesake of Antoine’s in New Orleans, topped some broiled oysters with a sauce of pureed vegetables flavored with absinthe and loaded with butter. He said the dish was so delicious it made the eater feel like the richest man in the world at the time (and for more than a century that followed), oil magnate and monopolist John D. Rockefeller.
While Alciatore took his recipe to the grave, Antoine’s still serves Oysters Rockefeller, and so do hundreds of other restaurants around the world. Most combine spinach with green onions and add some Pernod or other anise-flavored booze. While maybe not as delicious as the original, as long as the oysters are good nobody cares.
And as much as I love oysters, I wanted to make something similar but with a topping that made anything underneath taste like a million bucks. So I went down to the river and gathered up some stinging nettles. Stinging nettles (Urtica dioica) grow pretty much anywhere, but they really love the rainy Pacific Northwest. I think they’re the best wild food; easy to find, abundant, and incredibly delicious, with a savory, umami-rich flavor.
While you should have an experienced forager with you the first time you collect nettles, it’s easy to make sure you’ve got the right thing by just touching a leaf. The slightest pressure shatters the fuzzy covering of tiny glass-like needles and unleashes a poisonous brew of neurotransmitters, histamines, and formic acid, the same acid that makes bee stings and ant bites so painful. Wear gloves, preferably a layer of stretchy rubber ones under a thicker pair.
The season is short, from mid-March to early April around here, so I try to gather a lot. When I get home, I drop bunches into boiling water for a minute or two to neutralize the chemical sting, drain them, and squeeze the blanched nettles into roughly tennis ball-sized clumps for freezing. I save the broth, too.
My version of Antoine’s secret oyster topping would be good on the bivalves, but I’ve dolloped it on salmon, mushroom caps, smashed potatoes, and just plain toast. I think it would work with pasta, much like basil pesto, or you could actually make oysters Rockefeller. You’ll end up with 3-4 cups, so unless you’re feeding a big crowd, freeze whatever you don’t use the first time.
Recipe
1 leek, chopped
1 fennel bulb, chopped
1 celery stalk, chopped
1 ½ cups blanched nettles, chopped
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon kosher-style sea salt
1 tablespoon ketchup
1 teaspoon Crystal or similar vinegar-based hot sauce
1 teaspoon fennel seed, crushed
1 teaspoon dried thyme
½ cup Herbsaint or similar anise-flavored liquor like Pernod
½ cup breadcrumbs
Cook the leek, fennel, and celery in the olive oil and salt over medium low heat until the vegetables are very soft, about 15-20 minutes. Let cool slightly, transfer to a food processor, and blitz until smooth. Add the ketchup, hot sauce, fennel seed, thyme, Herbsaint and breadcrumbs, then pulse a few times to mix.
Spread a quarter inch thick layer on a salmon filet and broil until the topping just starts to brown, 8-10 minutes. Or roast large mushroom caps for about 20 minutes, add a dollop of the nettle mix, and pop them under the broiler. For smashed potatoes, boil small yellow spuds until tender, gently flatten with your hand, top with the nettles and broil. Old school Oysters Rockefeller requires opening the bivalves, pulling off the flatter ‘top’ shell, spooning some of the nettle mix onto the oyster, nestling them in rock salt on a sheet pan so they stay upright, baking them at 400F for about 5 minutes, and finishing under the broiler to brown the tops.