Art by Chiaki Chng

Posted: 28/17/ZS-253

By: ravenmumoftw0XX

My son Chris has always loved dishes with a kick. When he was little, it was a delight for my husband and I to cook with him and try new foods together. He always had a much higher tolerance than we did for which textures he could handle, and as he transitioned to high school, finding new foods to keep him occupied became progressively more difficult. By the time he was teething, if he wasn’t challenged by his dinner, we would find him chewing on the furniture half an hour later. We tried everything. Chew-away spray, extra meals—even padlocks on his door. None of it worked. His saliva was so corrosive the padlocks just dissolved.

And then—the holy grail. I had just begun tearing my hair out when Aleana from the PTA saved me. I’m ashamed to say I’d stopped attending meetings and was ignoring everyone’s calls. I had been in charge of organising the annual Windsend dance and the ladies hadn’t heard one word from me. I wasn’t even getting out of the car at pick-up time! Instead, I hid at the back of the car park and let Chris wander out to me. I could see the wildness in his eyes, and although the new teeth hadn’t burst through the skin yet, and the budding sores on his palms were angry and red. It was almost time to shut him away, but I wasn’t ready. He scared me. I was sure I was never that way.

Aleana cornered me one afternoon as I waited for Chris, cowering behind the wheel. Her daughter Lina and my son are good friends, and she was (and is) my closest confidante in the PTA. Gesturing for me to roll down the window, she handed me a piece of paper and sat with me for a moment. Then, she told me that when her second daughter started teething, this recipe had saved her belongings, her home and her sanity from ruin. I found it hard to believe anything could soothe Chris’s teething, but I sat him down and told him not to leave the table ‘til he was done. To my utter surprise, he chewed through it in ten minutes and put himself to bed. And we haven’t had a problem since!

I’m no longer dreading my daughter’s teething the way I dreaded Chris’s, and our family is looking forward to celebrating her upcoming milestone—bite-mark      free!

I’ve tweaked and improved upon the recipe over the years, but the building blocks are the same: nettle, red gravel and blue dart frogs. The red gravel is important! It’s crucial your teething teen sees the red colour in their meal—satisfies some old predatory instinct. The dart frogs don’t have to be blue, but they do have the most distinct flavour.

This dish can be frozen for up to a year. The ice reacts to the nettle juice, so the longer it freezes, the more it stings. The leaves won’t stay crisp, of course, but you can chop them finer so it’s less noticeable. 

Leave a comment down below if you make this recipe! Sign up to my mailing list to receive Upmail notifications for new posts. 

Enjoy! 

– ravenmumoftw0XX

Aleana’s stinging tooth-soother salad

Prep time: 25 hrs    Cook time: 20 mins

Serves: 2

Ingredients:

Salad:

2 cups nettle leaves [1], rinsed

1 cup red gravel

½ cup blackberry brambles

1 cup melon rind, diced

2 tsp juvenile cyclat talons [2] 

½ cup peridot dust [3]

3 tbsp solar cicada wings, chopped

5-10 thistle flowers [4]

Dressing:

¼ cup water

3 purple chilies, chopped

3 blue dart frogs, whole

2 tsp caster sugar

Instructions:

1. Charge solar cicada wings on a sunny windowsill for at least 24 hours.

2. Roughly chop rinsed nettle leaves and add into a large bowl.

3. Pour in red gravel, blackberry brambles and diced melon rind.

4. Mix with hands (alternatively, use a wooden kitchen pitchfork). Don’t forget your protective gloves!

5. Add cyclat talons, peridot dust and chopped solar cicada wings.

6. Mix again.

7. For dressing, add water, purple chillies, blue dart frogs and caster sugar to a blender, blending until smooth (de-seed the chillies if you don’t want the icy effect!). 

8. Over medium heat, warm a pot on the stove.

9. Pour dressing into a pot and simmer, allowing it to thicken for 10 minutes. Stir occasionally.

10. Let cool for another 10 minutes, then drizzle over salad. 

11. Mix dressing into salad to combine, then plate (serve on a flat plate or in a glass bowl, as the visual aspect is crucial to this dish being able to calm your teething teen).

12. Garnish with thistle flowers.

13. Serve!

Notes:

[1] Any nettle leaves will suffice, but wild nettle harvested fresh from the Sapphire Plains is my favourite.  

[2] Please only purchase FPB-certified and naturally shed cyclat talons. Factory farming is extremely unethical and results in a lower-quality product. I assure you, sustainable cyclat talons are worth the extra penny.

[3] Crushed pistachios and shells can work as a substitute for peridot dust.

[4] If freezing the salad, leave the thistle flowers and garnish after defrosting.