‘A great year for dandelions’
Well, the conditions have certainly been right for
dandelions this year – or they have in this area. They are lining the allotment
paths and there is a carpet of them on any patches of grass that haven’t been
destroyed by weed killers.
Please don’t kill your dandelions, they give a wonderful
splash of colour from February right through to November, but especially at
this time of year and bees love them. However, I know that many gardeners hate
them because they are so tenacious, but if you harvest the flowers then you
avoid the point when they turn to seeds anyway.
Dandelions are a key item on the foragers’ menu, as the
roots, leaves and flowers can all be utilised, whether it be to make wine,
coffee, ale, in salads and soups, or even making use of the florets as a ‘poor
man’s saffron’ to colour rice etc.
The dandelion leaves are best picked young and once
thoroughly washed can be used raw in salads, fried with bacon and some wild
garlic or marinated in vinegar. They do get a more bitter taste as they get
older, but blanching them takes the bitterness away and they can be used in
recipes as an alternative to spinach.
In Italy they combine these blanched leaves with anchovies, garlic,
capers, olives and pine kernels to make pizza di scarola – also known as
peasant’s pie.
The leaves are also a key ingredient in Dandelion and
Burdock ale. I have yet to try making this and apparently the smell can be
pretty bad, which doesn’t sound promising.
The other alcoholic beverage the dandelion provides is wine:
Midday Dandelion Wine
· 2 qts dandelion flowers (prepared by
removing as much of the green material from the flower heads as you can)
· 2 lbs 11 ozs granulated sugar
· 4 oranges
· 1 gallon water
· Yeast and yeast nutrient
As the
name suggests you need to pick the flowers at midday, so that they are fully
open.
Boil your
gallon of water, pour it over the flowers, cover with a cloth and leave to seep
for just two days.
Pour this
mixture back into your pot and bring to the boil.
Add the
peelings from the 4 oranges (no white pith) and boil for 10 minutes.
Put the
sugar into a pail (or jam making pot) and strain the liquid through a muslin
cloth onto it. Stir the sugar to
dissolve.
Once cool
add the juice of the oranges, the yeast and yeast nutrient.
Pour the
mixture into a secondary fermentation vessel, fit the fermentation trap and
allow it to ferment completely.
Once the
wine clears rack and bottle it.
Now comes
the hard bit, leave it for at least 6 months in the bottle before tasting. If
you can manage it, then leave it for a year, as the taste is even better.
The golden flowers can also be used to make fritters
Come the autumn when the roots are at their fattest, they
can be harvested and roasted to make dandelion coffee, which is one alternative
to decaf coffee. However, as a lover of very strong, black, caffeinated,
coffee, I’m afraid I cannot recommend it. Some foragers add hot chocolate to it
to make it more palatable, or even mix it with some decaff coffee, but it is
not the drink for me.
Dandelions are rich in vitamins A, B, C, and D, as well as containing iron,
potassium and zinc. They are said to boost the immune system, fight anemia, and
help prevent the development of type II diabetes. They have been used in
traditional medicine to treat liver and kidney problems as well as digestive
disorders. You can even use the milky liquid that comes out of the stem to
treat bee stings.
One word of caution – the dandelion also has the nickname ‘Piss-a-bed’, which comes from its distinct diuretic properties…
These blogs are just intended to give you a feel for
foraging, growing and making your own produce and to share my journey as I try
various things. As you know from
previous blogs there are some very dangerous plants in our countryside, so
please be careful out there. There
are plenty of foraging courses and you should probably do one before you go
charging round the countryside with your basket picking leaves!
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