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Salad

Dandelion Salad

A salad of dandelion greens dressed with olive oil, vinegar, salt, paprika, and garlic.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Olive and garlic are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 25,665 recipes. Both carry linalool, which smells floral, citrus. The science ↓

Dandelion Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the greens

  1. Cut off the roots and green portions of the dandelion leaves.

  2. Wash the leaves and steep them in salt water until crisp.

  3. Drain and press the leaves dry.

Dress and serve

  1. Rub a salad bowl with a clove of garlic.

  2. Place the dandelions in the bowl.

  3. Season with salt and sweet paprika.

  4. Dress with olive oil and a few drops of vinegar.

  5. Serve in the same bowl.

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. Olive + garlictop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,665 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  2. Dandelion + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together24 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Dandelion + olivetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together54 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptenal (green).

  4. Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Olive + clovetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,866 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Dandelion greens
Provide the bitter, leafy base of the salad.
Olive oil
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour across the leaves.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the bitter greens.
Garlic
Rubbed into the bowl to give a subtle aroma.

The step that matters

Press the leaves dry. Water left on the leaves dilutes the dressing so oil and vinegar slide off instead of coating them. Thorough drying helps the dressing cling and keeps the salad crisp.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (dandelion, olive, vinegar, garlic):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against dandelion, olive, vinegar, garlic. 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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