Bring a pot of lightly salted water to a boil, then blanch the nettles for a second or two until just wilted, then remove to an ice bath and chill. Remove the nettles and chop finely.
in a 2 qt sauce pan, melt the butter and stir in the flour. Whisk in the chicken stock and simmer for a few minutes until lightly thickened, then add the aniseed, fennel, and salt to taste.
Finally add the nettles and heat through, double check the seasoning and adjust as needed, then divide 1 cup portions between heated soup bowls or cups, garnish each with 3 quail eggs, fresh cracked pepper, creme fraiche if using and the dill, then serve immediately.
Notes
With a recipe with so few ingredients, it's important to use a strong, high quality chicken or poultry stock, or any stock you want to substitute. Recently I had a couple scrap ham bones, I simmered them in the chicken broth of a restaurant sized batch of this soup and I loved the result, too, so feel free to improvise.The dried spices were in the recipe I modified this from, and I like the subtle note they add, but you could definitely use other mild ground spices or seeds too. Wild fennel, angelica, dill seed, or other parsley family plants would be great, or omit the seeds all together and garnish the soup only with fresh herbs, especially mint and dill. If you really want to drive home the nettle, try pureeing half of the leaves with the soup and chopping the other half to add, you'll get more of a pronounced nettle flavor.Lastly, this is a very small batch, feel free to scale it.