There’s something…bucolic about eating dandelion greens. You are literally eating weeds.
You are, however, eating possibly the most vitamin-packed weed out there (to quote Mark Bittman: “if it were a processed food it might require FDA approval.”), if you can get past the bitterness because these greens–particularly if they are no longer young and freshly sprouted–are something fierce. If you get them young, you can enjoy a snappy salad, but if they’re a little older, you may have to cook them to mellow their flavor a bit. You can stir-fry them with a little soy sauce and garlic or you can boil them for 10 minutes in salted water and then saute them with a little olive oil, garlic, red pepper and salt.
My favorite thing about dandelion greens, however (and this goes for almost all peppery greens), is the way in which they complement fats. And truly, who doesn’t love a fat? Anyone who bats their eyelashes at you and tells you that they really can’t stand fatty things is either trying to appear to have Grace Kellyish virtue or doesn’t have tastebuds: the flavor of anything is generally in fat–that’s why higher fat beef and pork cuts usually taste better than leaner cuts and why people who do have tastebuds like bacon and skin on their chicken.
But–and while I’m sure Ms. Kelly herself chowed down on a few Five Guys burgers or 1950s equivalent in her day–I can understand the argument that while bacon is good and Paula Deen is fun to watch, too much fat is well, fatty. You need something to cut it and dandelion greens absolutely star in that role. There’s something so singularly good about the fine balance between a syrupy juicy fat, like a good olive oil or pancetta, and a vitamin-packed lean mean green. Jack Sprat and wife may have been on to something if they’d just shared once in a while.
RECIPE: Dandelion Greens with Bacon Salad
Filed under: Clean Food Daily, dandelion greens, greens, raw, salad, vegetables
