Dandelions—Be Excited!

And you are thinking, “Yeah, right.  She’s bonkers.”  (Well, that is entirely possible.)

Dandelion is one of those medicinal and nutritional powerhouses.  It’s also one of the most difficult to grow—obviously not because starting it is difficult.  That takes no effort at all—the dandelions just appear no matter what we do.  But if you are anything like me, you have a really hard time letting them stay in the garden.  Because we all know, if we let them stay, they’ll just take over like they own it. 

My plan last year, which did not get implemented, and my plan this year which I hope to be more successful with, is to have a dedicated dandelion bed at the far eastern end of the garden where the seeds will blow away to the neighbors downwind of us.  And that’s because the most medicinal part of the dandelion is the second-year root.  I’ve just never been able to allow dandelions to grow with the rest of the veggies, fruits, and flowers.  I figure I might be able to restrain myself from yanking them out if they had their own place.  We’ll see how that works out.

Anyway, as I was weeding the garden areas just outside our living room windows, removing the dandelions specifically before the flowers turn to seed, I experienced one of those lightbulb moments.  “Dandelions are food!  Free food!  That I didn’t plant!  That I can harvest now when nothing else is ready yet!”  I knew I’d seen recipes for dandelion salads and sautéed greens, as well as things to make with dandelion flowers.  I took a quick break from the yard and ran inside to Food.com.  It had nothing.  A Google search revealed a few hits.  I’d just bought a couple of large packages of lettuce the previous day, so I skipped the recipes for greens. 

Dandelion jelly?  No.  A friend shared some with me years ago.  It tasted just fine, but it’s basically just sugar syrup.  I’d rather use my sugar for other things.

Dandelion fritters sounded like it had potential.  All the ingredients were basic food storage items.  I decided to give it a try.

Fried Dandelions, Appalachian Style

80 fully opened dandelion flowers, stems removed

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon seasoning salt

1 ½ teaspoons ground black pepper

2 eggs

¼ cup coconut oil

Cover dandelion flowers with water and ½ teaspoon salt and let sit 10 minutes.  Drain well, using a salad spinner to remove as much water as possible.  Combine flour, salt, and pepper in a small bowl and set aside.  In a medium bowl, beat the eggs. 

Place a skillet on the stove over medium heat.  Melt the coconut oil.

Meanwhile, stir the dandelion flowers into the eggs, turning to coat completely.  Using a slotted spoon, remove half of the flowers, letting the excess egg drip off.  Toss the flowers in the flour mixture, using fingers to pick them up and shake to remove excess flour.  Gently place the battered flowers in the coconut oil, and stir occasionally, cooking for a total of 5 minutes.  When golden brown and crispy, remove with a slotted spoon and drain on paper towels.  Repeat with the other half of the dandelion flowers.

Serve immediately with ranch dressing.

(Don’t have a salad spinner?  Me neither.  Place the drained flowers in a strainer.  Place the strainer in the center of a large flour sack towel.  Pick up each corner of the flour sack towel, with the strainer inside, and go outside.  With the corners of the towel in hand, swing your arm around in circles to remove the water.  Pro tip:  Make sure you have all four corners in hand.)

Family reviews:  I offered a variety of dipping sauces—ketchup, Asian barbecue sauce, sriracha mayo, and sriracha ranch salad dressing.  I was hungry, so I ate about half the batch, favoring the sriracha ranch dressing.  (I discovered that Aaron ate all the ranch dressing while we were in Korea too late to make any for this.)  Unfortunately, Aaron, Blueberry Girl, and QOTPE had already had lunch, so they weren’t so enthusiastic about trying these.  However, they all said they were okay.  KOTPE came over a couple of hours later.  And I persuaded him to give them a try. As usual, he was highly suspicious.  He ate one and then said he wouldn’t eat more until I told him what they were.  His comment?  “They taste okay now.  In TEOTWAWKI, they’ll be great.”  And Mr. “They-taste-okay-now” kept on eating them. The next day Professor and Belle came over for lunch, and I made another batch for them to try.  KOTPE was also here, working on his truck.  And what was the first thing he put on his plate?  You guessed it--the fried dandelions, at least a dozen.  Professor and Belle also thought they tasted good.

Notes.  I started with the recipe at the link below and used coconut oil instead of butter.  In the comments, readers indicated that they also tried other oils with great success.  Also, I suspected that the quantities of eggs and flour mixture given in the original recipe would batter far more than 80 dandelions (and a few other readers noticed the same), so I adjusted the recipe accordingly.

References:

https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/214172/fried-dandelions-appalachian-style/

Links to related posts:

The Medicinal Uses of Dandelion