This morning I took a walk, visited a beautiful corner of Mom's yard and called a friend.
While I was chatting with my friend I noticed the dandelions in the lawn. I remembered that I wanted to pick some and fry them in butter. Today would be a good time to experiment. I've tasted them before. If I remembered correctly, I liked them. They remind me of morel mushrooms fried in butter.
The first time my dad brought morel mushrooms to my mom was a disaster. Dad picked them in the lawn/woods near the little church house in Graceton. He put them in a brown paper bag and nonchalantly handed them to Mom, asking her to fry them up for supper. Mom peeked inside the bag, screamed and flung the bag across the room. She thought they were toads.
Dad fixed supper that night. He persuaded Mom to try them. Wash, cut in half, pat dry, roll in flour and fry in butter. They were delicious. They became a family favorite.
Many years later we heard (or read) that you can eat the flowers of dandelions. Pick them, cut off the stem, wash, pat dry, roll in flour and fry in butter. Sprinkle some salt on the pieces.They taste very much like the morel mushrooms.
Of course, both mushrooms and flowers need to be fried with lots of butter. Some other questionable foods made better with butter are lutefisk and lefse. (They say melted butter must be poured over lutefisk.)
Today, I found out the flowers needed plenty of butter and a low heat so as not to burn them. It's a good idea to pick the flowers from a lawn that has not been sprayed.
In my own personal opinion it is good to let dandelions live because they are the first flowers for honey bees to collect nectar from after the long winter.
If you look up the info you'll find that you can eat dandelion flowers, leaves and roots. I'm not in favor of cooking dandelion leaves. (Again, my own personal opinion) Instead, collect the leaves, wash them and tear them up as you would salad greens.
There is a recipe with bacon pieces, a white sauce made using some of the bacon drippings, chopped hard boiled eggs and the dandelion greens. Eat this on buttered toast. I think grated cheese would be a great addition to this delicacy.
You will never go hungry at our house. We have lots of dandelions.
Recipe from:
*Mennonite Community Cookbook
Dandelion Salad
4 cups dandelion greens
3 hard boiled eggs
3 slices bacon
Wash and chop dandelion greens
Fry bacon until crisp, drain on paper towel
Dressing:
1 1/2 T flour
1 tsp salt
2 T sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup vinegar
2 cups milk
Mix the dry ingredients together. Add egg, vinegar and milk. Stir until well blended. Cook in bacon drippings until thickened. Cool slightly. Pour dressing over dandelion leaves and mix lightly. Add chopped, hard boiled eggs and bacon.
I think we ate this on top of toast. Maybe with lots more chopped eggs. (I hope the milk doesn't curdle when mixed with vinegar.)
*I didn't find a copyright in this cookbook
1 comment:
I grew up eating dandelion leaves every spring. My mother would make a brown gravy and cut up dandelion leaves in the gravy sometimes if she had bacon she would put that in but mostly there was no bacon. Then we would eat that over mashed potatoes.
There’s a restaurant in Berlin Ohio that serves dandelion gravy over mashed potatoes, but only once a week for the month of May. So in May when I was up there with my sister we went there and had dandelion gravy over mashed potatoes!! Oh so good!!
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