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Salad

Dandelion Salad

A salad of fresh white dandelion leaves dressed with salt, pepper, vinegar, and oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Dandelion and pepper work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 77 recipes. Both carry 2-heptenal, which smells green. The science ↓

Dandelion Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the dandelion leaves thoroughly in three waters and drain.

  2. Place the leaves in a salad bowl.

Dress and serve

  1. In a small bowl, mix the salt, pepper, vinegar, and oil.

  2. Pour the dressing over the salad and serve.

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. Dandelion + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together77 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptenal (green).

  2. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Dandelion + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together57 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh white dandelion leaves
Forms the leafy base of the salad, providing its body and slightly bitter flavor.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the oil.
Oil
Carries flavor and coats the leaves, giving the dressing a smooth mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Wash the dandelion leaves thoroughly in three waters and drain. Grit trapped in the leaves is hard to notice once they are dressed. Leaves that stay wet dilute the dressing and stop it clinging, so the salad tastes watery and gritty.

“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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