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Salad

Dandelion Salad

A simple salad of fresh 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. Select fresh white dandelion leaves and wash thoroughly in three waters.

  2. Drain and place in a salad bowl.

Dress and serve

  1. Add a pinch of coarse sea salt, half a pinch of black pepper, 1 tablespoon of vinegar, and 1 tablespoon of oil.

  2. Mix thoroughly and pour over the salad.

  3. 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. 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
Form the body of the salad, providing a crisp, slightly bitter leaf base.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the bitter leaves and balances the oil.
Oil
Carries flavor and coats the leaves with a light, silky fat.

The step that matters

Mix thoroughly and pour over the salad. Dressing must be evenly distributed so each leaf gets a light coating of oil and acid. Uneven mixing leaves some leaves greasy and others bare or sharp, and the bitter greens can taste harsh where the acid pools.

“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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