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1
Wearing gloves throughout, strip the nettle tips from their stems. Bring a large pot of very well-salted water to a rolling boil. Add the nettles and blanch for 60–90 seconds only. Lift them out and transfer immediately to cold water. The nettles should be vibrant, deep green — not grey or olive — and the sting entirely neutralised.
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2
Drain the blanched nettles and, working in batches, squeeze them firmly and thoroughly dry with both hands. No excess water should remain. Chop roughly. Insufficiently dried nettles will dilute and slacken the flavour in the pan.
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3
Place the lardo in a heavy pot over a medium-low flame. When it has rendered and begun to turn translucent, add the onion and cook gently until soft and pale gold — not browned. The fat should smell savoury and sweet, not sharp.
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4
Add the chopped nettles to the soffritto. Toss them in the hot fat over a medium flame for two minutes, turning to coat evenly. This is the step on which the soup lives or dies: the nettles must absorb the rendered lardo fat fully and begin to smell deeply mineral and grassy — not steamed or watery — before the liquid is added. If the nettles still smell raw and wet, the two minutes are not yet complete.
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5
Pour in 1.2 litres of water. Bring to a simmer, then cook uncovered for 20 minutes. The broth will deepen to a strong green and the nettles will partially dissolve into it.
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6
Break the pasta by hand into irregular pieces directly over the pot. Cook in the nettle broth until the pasta is tender and the broth has thickened perceptibly from released starch. Taste for salt. The broth should coat the back of a spoon lightly.
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7
Ladle into bowls. Grate ricotta salata generously over each portion at the table, then finish with a thread of raw extra-virgin olive oil. The surface should glisten; without the oil the soup will read flat on the palate.