Dandelion greens, like all greens, love fat. Their robust bitterness and peppery undertones are muted, to some degree, by the liquid smoothness of unrefined olive oil or – even better – the smokiness of a good quality bacon fat, free of added nitrates and nitrites and produced from hogs raised outdoors and under a vibrant sun. The strong flavor of the greens also pairs well with the sweet spice of toasted mustard seed.
Steve Vandever says
The park in my little town, actually part of the church grounds, is just covered in dandelions. I walked through there with my dogs giving them plenty of time to sniff while I grabbed the fluffy seed heads and did my best to stuff them into my shirt pocket so that any fluffies that flew were minus their seed payload. Then, unlike your advice to rid the area of dandelions, I scattered all those seeds over my garden beds hoping to get them firmly established.
I have 3 new dock plants growing there now. I got them by stopping at the roadside when I saw the tall, rusty spires of dock seedheads and brought home seeds to toss over the beds. I've also dug up lambsquarter from the local goat nursery and transplanted them in the garden. Yes, dandelions and other "weeds" are nutrient dense and actually much better for people than many of their descendant varieties that have been made through artificial selection and hybridization. Mallow, prickly lettuce, sow thistle and countless other weeds are actually good, free food if only people would pick and use them instead of spending lots of money to poison them... and their soil and the rest of the environment.