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Melana's Yard Squid
Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2001 13:28:04 -0400
Hold on a sec...I need some hot coffee to warm my bones...
Okay...back and waiting on the coffee to brew.
Today is blustery and cold. Worse if your an idiot like me and borrow the car for the morning to drive across the canal and be on the wrong side next to the water. My eyes where bleeding from the cold but I still hiked a good 5 kilometers in before turning around and heading home.
Along the way I saw evening primrose up and tempting me to harvest. The biggest ones where just to near the highway though so I passed them by. I know a place far more secluded from passing motorists where the earth is powdery and the harvest easy. Just have to plan a foray there soon.
I had hoped to find black mustard greens along this new path since the time is right for a harvest, but no luck today. The place I collected from a couple of years ago washed out in a flood so a new harvest area is on my list of finds.
Dandelions spotted the trail along my way. Small reddish-purple new growth could be found among last fall's dead leaves as I scuffed along. Maybe a quarter in diameter the rosettes are tough to spot but I managed to collected next to a gallon full. The cold shore and snow on the banks has kept the harvest here young and fresh while in sunny places in town the plants have lost the redness of early spring and already have developed the green hues of maturity. I just prefer the very youngest greens possible for my recipes. (Not to long and those greener babies will be blooming and here I am on my first foray since the snow melted last weekend!)
Plans are to make a major harvest tomorrow if the weather permits so that I can batter, partially fry and freeze the crowns for the wild dinner I am hosting later for my church.
And by now you are asking yourself why I titled this letter "Yard Squid", well.... Fried squid is one of my favorite treats when I go to a restaurant and to me, young dandelion crowns, battered in tempura and deep fried are as good as you can get in comparison. So much so we call them yard squid around here.
To make them yourself you want to harvest the dandelions as early as possible and NOT when the plants begin to bloom because by then they are to big and have begun developing a bitter taste. Dig the crowns by cutting the root beneath the soil. When you clean these cut the root free about 1/8th of an inch below the green part and set the root aside. (These can either be boiled and served with butter and herbs as a side dish or roasted at 350 degrees F until brittle for a coffee substitute.) If the leaves on your crown are more than an inch or so long clip them off and set them aside. These greens can be used to make pesto or in soups, quiche, lasagna or dried and used later in herbed bread, rolls or in soups.
What you are left with is the crown and the crown is where all the bloom buds are. Make a pancake type batter from flour, one egg and a bit of milk. Add spices such as garlic powder, black pepper, onion powder, parsley and the likes. Gently salt the washed and towel dried crowns and dip in the batter. Deep fry until golden brown and serve. Yummy. Makes my mouth water just thinking about it!
Melana Hiatt