This side dish of dandelion greens with a simple stovetop custard sauce flavored with bacon and apple cider vinegar is a PA Dutch classic. My Grammy Drake taught my mom how to make it when my parents were first married, and my mom gave me the recipe. I’ve made it before but not for a few years. I guess I got busy and somehow forgot how special a memory this homey mixture is. Actually, my mom used to make the custard minus the bacon, vinegar and greens and pour it onto a dinner plate; I would eat it still warm and it was very soothing and yummy if I had a tummy ache.
Back to this version that my father loved: the dandelion greens are slightly bitter; the bacon is salty and crisp if you add it at the very last moment. Mixed together with the tangy custard it is so delicious over freshly made mashed potatoes. It tastes like my childhood.
Notes: There are a few secrets to it. Use whole milk to get the proper thickness and rich flavor for your custard. Use real bacon and chop it up before frying. Pick tender greens and clean them well: rinse, remove any bloom stalks and dead or yellow leaves. Rinse again. Double check and rinse one last time. Spin in your salad spinner or dry in lint free kitchen towels. Finally, it’s critical to stir the custard often as it cooks and keep the heat low; it is pretty easy to scotch this delicate sauce.
Hot Dandelion Salad
Custard Ingredients:
2 Tbsp. rice flour
1.5 Tbsp. sugar
pinch of sea salt
1 cup whole milk
1 large egg, lightly beaten
2 Tbsp. apple cider vinegar
2 slices of bacon fried to crispy perfection – crumble after they cool
1 qt cleaned dandelion leaves, no flower stems, roots or brown/yellow leaves. Wash several times and spin dry in your salad spinner. Baby spinach makes a good substitute for dandelions.
Freshly made mashed potatoes
Directions: Mix the flour, sugar and salt in a 1 qt saucepan, preferably one with a heavy bottom. Add the milk and whisk together. Place over medium low heat and whisk in the egg. Cook slowly until it thickens quite a bit, could take 3-5 minutes. Remove from heat, cool for 5 minutes and add vinegar; whisk well. Add a tsp or two of the bacon fat and stir in the crumbled bacon and washed and torn dandelion greens. Serve while still warm over mashed potatoes. Goes well with roasted trout, fried heirloom porkchops or salmon fillets. Enjoy!
Winter is not known as the season for great salad but it could be! It has been so cold here in PA I am longing for summer fruits so these winter salads can fill that bill when you are meal planning.
I am giving you two salads for this post plus variations for each. Try your own blends but it is best not to throw everything in the fridge in it. Try to be selective and highlight one or two ingredients. Simple salads I like have only three – five ingredients and I use my homemade vinaigrette dressing. They are pretty healthy and probably fairly low in calories yet high in nutritional value. These are basic recipes which you can tweak depending on the ingredients in your fridge and pantry.
Here are two versions of my winter salad. This is a repost from my blog a few years ago. I eat these salads all winter long and think you should too. Recently I bought a few blood oranges and used them in lieu of a navel orange; totally different look but pretty much the same flavor; fun!
Super Winter Salad (serves 1)
1 cup of chunked papaya
½ an avocado
1 celery stalk
3-4 leaves of green loose leaf lettuce
2-3 tbsp. fresh pomegranate seeds
Or try this yummy winter salad which has lots of fennel which I love and shows off citrus flavor and color:
s
Citrus Fennel Salad (serves 1)
1 inner stalk of celery cut in 1/3 inch rounds
1 navel orange
¼ cup fennel bulb, cut in ¼-1/3 inch slices
Peel the orange, either by hand or using a paring knife. Cut across into rounds about ¼-1/3 inch across. Cut again across into halves.
Fennel has a sweet crunch to it, faintly tasting of licorice, kinda sort of and it marries really well with citrus. I also like to use blood orange or cara cara navel oranges in this recipe. Even grapefruit slices are great. Cara cara oranges have an interesting orange-pinkish cast to the fruit and a lovely sweet flavor. The local Giant grocery store has them on display right now. You can also mix two citrus in your salad; a navel and a blood orange. Fantastic!
Finishing directions for both salads:
Place the salad ingredients in your salad dish; I have some very low sided ceramic bowls I got a long time ago that I love for salad. Then sprinkle the salad with vinaigrette which you just shook up one last time! Please don’t add too much salad dressing or you will have soggy salad, really not a good thing.
Margie’s Vinaigrette
So, I used to use one of those Good Seasoning’s jars but add my own ingredients, use a pint jar if you like; my current jar is a plastic lidded shaker jar with a wire mixing ball that shakes the oil and vinegar to perfection. The main thing you must have is a tight-fitting lid. If you use the Good Seasons one, fill it to the vinegar line with red wine vinegar, please don’t use the cheap store brand (skimpy 1/4 cup). Then some filtered water to the water line (about 1/3 inch more or two tbsp.). Next, I add ½ tsp Dijon mustard, ½ tsp sea salt, ¼ tsp dried oregano, a sprinkle of dried thyme, 1 tsp mayonnaise, ¼ tsp freshly ground black pepper, ½ tsp sugar and [optional] one garlic clove (peeled and mashed down a bit to release flavor). Then add extra virgin olive oil, stop a bit before the oil line and finish it with lighter olive oil (1/2 cup plus one Tbsp. of combined olive oils). Shake it up really well. Then shake it some more, you need to get the mayo to blend in as completely as possible. It tastes best at room temperature and plan ahead – let it rest for at least an hour before you use it the first time. Keep it in the refrigerator if there is any left over, lasts like a month in there. The mustard adds snap, and the bit of mayo helps the dressing stay emulsified (fully blended) longer than it would without the mayo. If your salad is delicate and you don’t want as much olive oil flavor use only mild olive oil and skip the EVOL. If you chill the dressing, you will need to let it warm up before using it; ten seconds in the microwave can help with that process.
I named this after my older sister who passed away several years ago. She made fantastic vinaigrette. Mine is not quite hers but close enough to masquerade as it. She would approve….
Note: You could up the nutritional value with a few almonds or walnuts if you like nuts in your salad.
More thoughts: I make any number of salad combos. Two of my favorite ingredient combinations are: shredded carrot, sliced radishes, chickpeas, romaine and half rounds of European cucumber or a mixture of torn kale leaves, shredded raw Brussels sprouts, scallion rounds and julienned raw summer squash. Both mixtures are great with this vinaigrette. Just don’t put more than say five things in any one salad or it will have a mixed up taste.
Last thoughts: I generally avoid tomatoes in winter although some grape tomatoes can be relatively tasty; use them if you feel the need for tomatoes.
So, go get your healthy green on and enjoy a fruity salad, even in the winter.
This dish is a family favorite in those summer months of ripe tomatoes and hot days that feel too warm for a big heavy meal. This salad is just so delicious when made with fresh summer tomatoes – easily available at farm stands or home gardens. This salad is composed of several vegetables cooked until just barely done, bathed in a simple EVOL vinaigrette and topped with oil packed tuna. Fresh, satisfying and very healthy in that trendy Mediterranean way I keep reading about. This salad is my daughter’s favorite from her teen years; she is 32; I have been making it for decades! My mother loved it too. My guy enjoys it as well. I don’t make it except in summer as the fresh produce is critical to the flavor especially the tomatoes.
First, you start with fresh ripe summer tomatoes, crisp bell peppers, tender zucchini and high-quality small potatoes, preferably red organic ones and the oil packed tuna of your choice. Do not make it with water canned tuna, pallid and lacking flavor: a total waste of time in my opinion. You can lay it on a bed of romaine leaves or leave off the lettuce, great either way. I use fancy olives sometimes, but inexpensive small canned pitted ones work just fine. Please do make the homemade vinaigrette; it is very simple and very effective in creating the perfect flavor of the salad. If you hate one of the ingredients; leave it out. I do want to mention that many recipes use wedges of hard-boiled eggs but my version doesn’t usually have that. Feel free to add them in!
Before I add the tuna….
Angie’s Salad Nicose
Ingredients
2 lbs of small red potatoes
2 medium peppers; one red, one green, cut into vertical strips and halved across the middle.
1 medium zucchini sliced in 1/2 inch half rounds
1/2-2/3 lb fresh green beans, tips removed, if long cut in half
2/3 of a 14 oz can of small pitted olives, drained
1 large ripe tomato cut into chunks
2 cans oil packed tuna fillet
Vinaigrette I use one of those cool modern vinaigrette jars that has a wire metal ball in it to easily mix my dressing in; works really well!
Fill jar with 1/4 cup red wine vinegar or to the water line [If using a Good Season’s jar – second line from bottom]
Fill rest of way to oil line with EVOL (I often do half EVOL and half mild olive oil) (about 2/3 cup)
Then add the following:
1/2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp. French Dijon mustard
1/2 tsp sea salt; rounded
ground black pepper to taste – cap it and mix it up well
Salad directions
Put the potatoes in a saucepan, cover with cold water and boil on high until just tender. Whie, they cook chop the individual veggies. Steam each kind individually in a pot with 1/2-inch water until just tender (3-5 min) Taste one to be sure., do not overcook them! Carefully drain each cooked veggie and dump gently into a big bowl. On top of each other. Make the vinaigrette as you do the cooking so it can stand 5-10 minutes. When the potatoes are done drain them and set on your cutting board to cool; not touching each other. Peel them and slice thickly. If they are oval, I sometimes just cut into two thin halves, cutting along the long side. Put them in the bowl you will serve the salad in. When all hot potatoes are peeled pour 1/3 of the vinaigrette over them and carefully turn with a big spoon to coat well. They should still be quite warm when you do this step. The dressing soaks into the warm potatoes; doing it warm is very important to the flavor. Put the cooked and drained veggies in there on top. Add the tomato chunks, tuna and olives. add another third of dressing and gently turn the salad to mix well. Adjust the salt/pepper and dressing amount. Serve on a plate or shallow bowl on a bed of torn up crisp romaine leaves. Enjoy!
This dish is a family favorite in those summer months of ripe tomatoes and hot days that feel too warm for a big heavy meal. I know it has cooled down some but this salad is so delicious if you have fresh summer tomatoes which are easily available at farm stands or home gardens. This salad is composed of several vegetables cooked until just barely done, bathed in a simple EVOL vinaigrette and topped with oil packed tuna. Fresh, satisfying and very healthy in that trendy Mediterranean way I keep reading about. This salad is my daughter’s favorite from her teen years; she is 31; I have been making it for decades! My mother loved it too. My guy enjoys it as well. I don’t make it except in summer as the fresh produce is critical to the flavor especially the tomatoes.
First, you start with fresh ripe summer tomatoes, crisp bell peppers, tender zucchini and high-quality small potatoes, preferably red organic ones and the oil packed tuna of your choice. Do not make it with water canned pallid tuna, a total waste of time in my opinion. You can lay it on a bed of romaine leaves or leave off the lettuce, great either way. I use fancy olives sometimes, but inexpensive small canned pitted ones work really well. Please do make the homemade vinaigrette; it is very simple and very effective in creating the perfect flavor of the salad. If you hate one of the ingredients; leave it out. I do want to mention that many recipes use wedges of hard boiled eggs but my version doesn’t usually have that. Feel free to add them in!
Before I add the tuna….
Angie’s Salad Nicose
Ingredients
2 lbs of small red potatoes
2 medium peppers; one red, one green, cut into vertical strips and halved across the middle.
1 medium zucchini sliced in 1/2 inch half rounds
1/2-2/3 lb fresh green beans, tips removed, if long cut in half
2/3 of a 14 oz can of small pitted olives, drained
1 large ripe tomato cut into chunks
2 cans oil packed tuna fillet
Vinaigrette I use one of those cool modern vinaigrette jars that has a wire metal ball in it to easily mix my dressing in; works really well!
Fill jar with 1/4 cup red wine vinegar or to the water line [If using a Good Season’s jar – second line from bottom]
Fill rest of way to oil line with EVOL (I often do half EVOL and half mild olive oil) (about 2/3 cup)
Then add the following:
1/2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp. French Dijon mustard
1/2 tsp sea salt; rounded
ground black pepper to taste – cap it and mix it up well
Salad directions
Put the potatoes in a saucepan, cover with water and boil on high until just tender. Whie, they cook chop the individual veggies. Steam each kind individually in a pot with 1/2-inch water until just tender (3-5 min) Taste one to be sure., do not overcook them! Carefully drain each cooked veggie and dump gently into a big bowl. On top of each other. Make the vinaigrette as you do the cooking so it can stand 5-10 minutes. When the potatoes are done drain them and set on your cutting board to cool; not touching each other. Peel them and slice thickly. If they are oval, I sometimes just cut into two thin halves, cutting along the long side. Put them in the bowl you will serve the salad in. When all hot potatoes are peeled pour 1/3 of the vinaigrette over them and carefully turn with a big spoon to coat well. They should still be quite warm when you do this step. The dressing soaks into the warm potatoes; doing it warm is very important to the flavor. Put the cooked and drained veggies in there on top. Add the tomato chunks, tuna and olives. add another third of dressing and gently turn the salad to mix well. Adjust the salt/pepper and dressing amount. Serve on a plate or shallow bowl on a bed of torn up crisp romaine leaves. Enjoy!
My World Without Wheat 