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Dandelion Greens

A boiled dandelion greens dish flavored with salt, peanut cream, and egg yolk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Peanut and cream work together. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 490 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Dandelion Greens

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the dandelions thoroughly and place them in a large pot of cold water.

  2. Boil for a few minutes, then drain the water and add more cold water.

  3. If the dandelions are not very young, par‑boil them again until tender.

Cook and drain

  1. Add the salt and cook for an additional 10 minutes.

  2. Drain and press out as much water as possible.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in the peanut cream and adjust salt if needed.

  2. Finally, mix in the well‑beaten egg yolk and serve immediately.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Peanut + creamtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together490 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Dandelion + peanuttop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1 recipe

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Dandelion + creamtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  5. Peanut + eggtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,351 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Cream and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Dandelions
Form the bulk of the dish and supply its slightly bitter, leafy flavour once cooked tender.
Peanut cream
Adds fat and richness, giving the greens a smooth, creamy body and nutty flavour.
Egg yolk
Enriches the sauce and helps bind the cream into a thicker, silkier coating when mixed in.

The step that matters

Press out as much water as possible before adding the cream. Leftover water dilutes the peanut cream and loosens the sauce, so the greens turn watery instead of coated and creamy. Pressing removes it so the cream clings to the leaves.

Swap the peanut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (dandelion, cream, egg):

  1. Chestnutfits better
  2. Walnutfits better
  3. Lentilsfits better
  4. Peanutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against dandelion, cream, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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