Dandelion Wine. The words were summer on the tongue. The wine was summer caught and stoppered...Hold summer in your hand, pour summer in a glass, a tiny glass of course, the smallest tingling sip for children; change the season in your veins by raising glass to lip and tilting summer in. --Ray Bradbury
Yes, they come late here in Idaho...the past week or so and they seem to be coming up all over, little specks of gold in every nook and cranny. Most people hate them...especially when they infect one's lawn from a less-scrupulous neighbor. The dandelion, however, is easy to recognize, completely edible, and very nutritious.
 | ||
| From Thalassa's Herbal at Musings of a Kitchen Witch (very useful information, plus recipes) |
Most dandelion recipes call for the young leaves--slightly bitter, like radicchio, rather then the tear-inducing citrus pith quality of the mature leaves. However, I missed that window this year. So what to do instead?
Dandelion Syrup
Dandelion Flower Cookies
Pickled Dandelion Buds (scroll down)
Dandelion Lemonade
Roasted Dandelion Root "Coffee"
Dandelion Wine
More Recipes (including soup, cake and baklava)
And, if you can still find young leaves in your part of the globe, the excellent traditional dandelion salad with bacon and hard-boiled eggs.
As always, if you're going to wild-gather, make sure that you pick an area that has not been sprayed and is far enough away from roads to avoid contamination!
Looks like I have some edible exploring to do... any other links anyone cares to share?
5 comments:
Ooh... some of those recipes look fantastic! Another fun one is dandelion cornbread. It takes a while to cut all the petals off, but the texture and color are gorgeous, and the dandelion taste is really subtle. I don't know if this was the recipe we used, but it looks yummy. http://thegardenersrake.com/herb-gardening-dandelion-cornbread I really want to try some of those soups... will have to try and catch the dandelions before they bud next year.
I did a dandelion post a long while back...including a dandelion quiche that I'd like to try one of these days http://nuannaarpoq.wordpress.com/thalassas-herbal/dandelion/
I absolutely adore Dandelions. They weren't blooming when I was in Idaho in April.
Did you know, May 2nd is National Dandelion Day. (yep, I kid you not:) I too did a celebration post a while back. Here's the link.
Thank you so much for that Dandelion Syrup link. I often visit fxcuisine.com, François-Xavier is a favorite visit of mine. I must have missed that one. Thanks again...
@Kjerstin, Thanks for that! It's too cold and windy for me to pick today, or else I'd be working on syrup from the full-blooming flowers, and pickles from the buds (looks like it will be nice again Saturday...so I know what I'm doing!). Hopefully I'll have something interesting to share at a future ISVI event.
@Thal....I linked you! Under the picture! Hehehe...Thanks for posting it again, though, since it's not that visible there. The quiche sounded great to me, too!
@louise, I had no idea. What a fun coincidence! I enjoy Francois-Xavier a lot, too...particularly the Swiss heritage recipes. I'm primarily Swiss-German and Danish on my mother's side, only a few generations American, too. It always makes me so sad that traditions from those cultures evaporated into more generic American/religious culture before they could be passed down. That was the way of the times, though...complete integration was demanded to be a good citizen.
I hope to be able to reverse that trend to some degree with my own children, but that could take up an entire post of it's own someday!
Lol!!! I totally missed that!!!
I'll be sure to send you the new link, once I convert everything over to my online herbal!
(though that might take awhile, so don't hold your breath...)
Post a Comment