Skip to main content
Salad

Dandelion

A salad of dandelion greens dressed with an egg, vinegar, butter, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Dandelion and vinegar work together. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 57 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Dandelion

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the greens

  1. Pick and wash the dandelion greens, cut off the roots, then drain the greens.

Make the dressing

  1. In a saucepan, mix the egg, vinegar, butter, and salt.

  2. Heat the mixture over low heat until it thickens, then remove from heat and let it cool.

Serve

  1. Pour the dressing over the dandelion greens 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 + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together57 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Vinegar + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  4. Dandelion + buttertop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Dandelion + eggtop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together51 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptenal (green).

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

What each ingredient does

Dandelion greens
Provides the leafy, slightly bitter base of the salad.
Egg
Thickens the dressing as its proteins set with gentle heat, and helps bind it smooth.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the dressing its sharp, tangy flavour.
Butter
Adds fat that enriches the dressing and gives it a smoother mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Heating the dressing over low heat until it thickens. Egg proteins set as they warm. Heat that is too high can scramble the egg into lumps, while low, gentle heat thickens the dressing evenly and smoothly.

“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.

You might also like

Chicken SaladChicken Salad623 recipesSalad DressingSalad Dressing491 recipesTomato SaladTomato Salad179 recipesCold SlawCold Slaw160 recipes