Like a lot of my posts lately, this is about 2 - 3 weeks earlier than usual, but the baking March sun is bumping everything up a bit, including the collection of dandelions on Amish farmsteads. Â Dandelion greens are a staple of spring on most Amish menus. The young, tender shoots make for mighty good eatin'...wait until the dandelions mature a bit and you've got one bitter salad on your hands. Â This is the dandelion green salad recipe that Lovina and her family use. Â We ran this last year in her column the week of April 11 so you can see we are running ahead of schedule this year! Â Here are two photos of dandelion green salad at the Eichers, the first is the washed greens followed by the ready-to-eat salad. Â Anyone going to try this recipe? If so, let us know how you liked it!
DANDELION GREEN SALAD
4 cups dandelion leaves, cut
4 slices of bacon
½ cup Miracle Whip
½ cup vinegar
2 cups of milk
2 Tbsp. sugar (optional)
1 tsp. salt
¼ teaspoon pepper
4 hard-cooked eggs
Carefully pick over the first young tender dandelion leaves of the season and cut into inch lengths. They must be gathered before the plant blooms. In a skillet, fry the bacon crisp. Remove from pan. Reserve bacon fat. In a separate bowl, mix Miracle Whip, vinegar, milk and optional sugar until smooth and creamy. Some prefer a slightly sweeter salad and little sugar will provide that taste. Add bacon grease to mixture until well blended. Allow mixture to cool and toss dressing through greens until leaves are all coated. Heap salad in a mound and garnish with strips of bacon and slices of egg.
Darlene Kistler-Alvord
I never liked the greens when I was a child in Indiana, but I loved the fried dandelion blossems and living in Florida now, I never get them.
Marti
Not a comment to be posted -- just a question about the recipe -- there is water listed, but not used in the directions? Could you clarify?
Thanks!
Kevin
Marti, good eye...that was an error...The water should not have been listed, I removed it..enjoy! - Kevin
Jan-o
How does one find a dandelion in growing in one's yard if it has no yellow flower on top? When you say picking it must before it "blooms" perhaps (hopefully) you mean before it turns into a puff. Otherwise are we to crawl on hands and knees with magnifying glass in hand? Call me..."Not That Hungry' :)) BTW, Thanks, Kevin for fixing the broken links.
Dawn Kirk
Hi Jan-0,I guess you have to be able to recognize the greens.I can do that-they're all over & I'm familiar with them.Of course can't explain it here with no picture,but that's the key to it,knowing what they look like before hand.
Dawn-a reader.
Dawn Kirk
Forgot to add;he means even before the yellow flower grows,so way before the puff stage.The leaves are jagged with a small circle in the middle.They're not tiny,(don't need a magnifying glass!)but it would be best to use a guide book to indentify.
Charlotte
Looks like soup.
Becky Leeman
my mom and grandma made it similar to this, but without Miracle Whip and eggs, but ate it hot, sometimes over boiled potatoes. They liked a lot of vinegar and it was too sour for me.
A.
how do u grow dandelion's? can u just use the one's in the yard? or do u have to grow them a special way?
Maxie Anderson
When I lived in Jackson Hole, Wyo. I had an ole mountain man cookbook, so decided to make some cooked dandelion greens. Wasn't accepted very well. Wasn't sure when they should be picked. I never got to the salad. I figured as many that grows and aggravates us, should serve some purpose. When company came in and ask" what's cooking, my girls said "You won't believe it cause mom's cooking weeds." LOL