This recipe is adapted from Rose Wilde’s crispy broccoli rabe and borage cream cheese from Bread and Roses. Her version is built on roasted broccoli rabe and garlic folded into cream cheese and feta, with borage flowers worked in, their blue petals carrying a mild note of cucumber and honey. It’s a savory, well-seasoned spread, with depth from the roasted greens and salt from the feta.
When I made it again later in the week and didn’t have broccoli rabe on hand, I folded in nettles instead, finely chopped and vivid green, keeping the same base and method. Nettles are one of those ingredients I return to again and again in spring — sometimes in sweets, sometimes folded into something savory — and here they fit naturally, the recipe shifting slightly with what was on hand.
Nettle and Borage Cream Cheese
Ingredients
This recipe is written in grams so you will need a digital scale
50 grams nettle tips
2-3 cloves of garlic
1 tablespoon olive oil
salt and freshly ground pepper
250 cream cheese
100 g feta
30 g heavy cream
10 to 15 borage flower
Instructions
-
- Bring a small pot of salted water to boil. Add the nettles and cook for 2 minutes, transfer to a bowl of ice water. Drain and squeeze out the extra liquid.
-
- Gently heat the olive oil in a small pan. Add the garlic and cook for 1-2 minutes, until fragrant. Add the nettles and season with salt and pepper cook for an additional minute or two.
-
- In the stand mixer fitted with the whist attachment, combine the cream cheese, feta, and cream. Whip on medium speed, for 2 minutes, increase the speed and whip until light and fluffy. Gently fold in the nettles and borage flowers.
Leave a Reply