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Summary: This impressive yet really easy dish pairs a hero of traditional Scottish cuisine with a tian, which is a french specialty made by arranging slices of tomato, aubergine, courgette and sometimes mozzarella or goat cheese, in a baking dish, and baking until golden and delicious.
We make the towers here with aubergines, veggie haggis and mozzarella, but feel free to use tomatoes, red onion rings, courgettes or goat cheese instead of the mozzarella.
Thanks to Macsween, we have vegetarian haggis !
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Summary: Despite their unpleasant sting, the humble wild nettles are actually tasty and very nutritious: they are high in Iron, Calcium, Magnesium, Phosphorous, Zinc, Chromium, B vitamins and trace minerals including Selenium and Manganese ! Plus, they are free and widely available, so the little care required in handling them is totally worth it. In fact, the occasional nettle sting, unpleasant as it can be, is actually a good tonic for the nervous, circulatory and lymphatic systems. Nettles are used intentionally for this purpose in a treatment called uritication.
Popular ways to eat nettles include nettle soup, nettle tea and steamed nettles ; in fact you could swap the spinach in any recipe with wild foraged nettles. But long cooking times destroy some of nettles beneficial phytonutrients, so eating raw nettles like in this raw vegan nettle pesto is a bonus. Just handle the leaves carefully while washing and drying them. Thoroughly chopping the nettles in the food processor stops them from stinging.
This pesto is delicious served on cucumber or tomato slices for canapés, on toast topped with roasted vegetables, or stirred through grain pasta or courgetti (spaghetti substitute made by processing raw courgettes using a spiraliser or a julienne peeler).
These quantities make up quite a big batch, please feel free to halve the recipe if needed.
PS: The quality and freshness of your nettles really shine through in this recipe. Use the freshest, greenest, youngest nettle leaves you can find.
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Summary: Be warned, most guests eat so many of these haggis crostini that they have no room for anything else!
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