How do you cook your weeds?

Oftentimes we may love our weeds just because they came from the earth… but the people we feed them to may think otherwise. Or, maybe our weeds taste good enough, but they could use some kind of preparation that makes them so much better.

What are your favorite ways of preparing the weeds?

One that I like is to boil them into a soup. To make it especially rich, add garlic and butter; but as long as it has nettles or other nourishing herbs, it’s good on its own. Typically I try to make soups like this at least half nettles because those are my favorite greens and it is hard to imagine getting tired of them. However, if it does have fat and garlic then I’d want to add something bitter like garlic mustard, wild lettuce, or horseradish greens.

Something important for cooking bitter aster-family greens. Dandelions aren’t just edible when young in spring. They can be eaten all through summer, as they have tender leaves continuously growing. The same for wild lettuce. Their big leaves are not particularly more bitter compared to the little ones, and anyway, once we start to eat bitter and introduce it to our dishes in a balanced, delicious way, we may even begin to crave and love these bitter flavors.

Sometimes one bitter is not the same as the other. The quality of bitter in wild lettuce is different from that of dandelion or burdock leaf, and also different from horseradish, garlic mustard, and the rest of the mustardy bitter herbs. Sometimes we may want one kind of bitter and not another.

I also feel that bitter greens are better cooked, and they are typically evened out with water, becoming less intense and more flavorful. They are also good made into a stir fry with cheese or other flavorful and savory components.

Do you have some good ways of cooking bitter herbs too?

There are of course milder salad greens among our weeds. Some of my favorites are mallow, galinsoga, and lady’s thumb. These tend to go in the same place as cultivated greens…but taste…maybe a little better?

I would like to hear from you!

My default recipe for anything strange, whether of animal or plant origin, involves onions, garlic, and curry powder!  Greens and weeds can simply be chopped up and added to a pot of curry already cooking and focused on other ingredients, or they can be stir-fried with the above spices directly in a bit of oil or grease, with some water added if they need more steaming...the more bitter or strong they are, the longer they cook.

I really like to cook something for the first time, by itself.  Maybe in the skillet or steamed with butter.   Just to see how it is.

After that mixing with eggs is nice or in a stew.   A lot of times I add a handful of greens to the blender when I make a smoothie or juice them up with carrots and apples.    

We were talking about this very thing you and I, you've inspired me to try doing what I do with other weeds, if we're not eating them in salads, stirfrying or sauteying them, but with the dandylion leaves, as my husband thinks they're bitter in salads.  I've partly solved the problem by only putting a few in with other less-bitter leaves for salads, but maybe cooking them will solve his problem more thoroughly.

I find whole leaves of dandelion in a salad challenging and my wife and kids simply reject them. But I can chiffonade them first and then we like the hint of bitter it adds to every bite. They also do just seem to disappear into stews, casseroles, or stir-fries. Other weeds like the sorrels and lambs quarters are easier.

We really enjoy eating bitters as salad, with some vinegar and an oil. Usually balsamic and olive, using dandelions or chicory (I grow both specifically for eating raw). We don't eat the really bitters like burdock, for example, I feel there's no real need for that. We basically don't eat lettuce (outside of a BLT) because it's no fun.
As for the more mild greens, I'm another one sauteeing them up with onions and garlic and maybe throwing in a couple of eggs. We have a few local super-nutritious greens that need to be cooked (oxalic acid) and that's my go-to.

Another good way to eat greens is ohitashi style- you blanch, squeeze, and then add a broth and some toppings. I like doing it with tastier greens like chrysanthemums, it's not great for bitter but for strong tastes (or for greens without much taste) it works nicely. https://www.justonecookbook.com/spinach-ohitashi-japanese-spinach-salad-with-bonito-flakes/

I have come to favoring the microwave.  chopping them to small pieces and placing  fatty meat on top they takeup the fat and juice which makes the nutrients of both more absorbable.   My problem is my favorites are also deer favorites.  Don't forget to garnish with the blossoms; hollyhocks and evening primrose are my favorites.

Try a hot iron skillet with some bacon grease, diced onions and a little minced garlic. Saute' until tender

The other day I had some clovers for breakfast—boiled until tender, they were good! (Then I overdid it by trying boiling with ashes in a second change. But we make mistakes.) am realizing that in order to utilize them most thoroughly as a protein source, many—especially the stronger ones— need to be boiled—not boiled to utmost blandness, but until tender and to the point where it tastes good to eat a substantial amount.

Dame’s rocket and garlic mustard are the most common greens this time of year here, and both are relatively strong-tasting. Boiled, they become palatable as a major component of a meal when the fiber, nutrients and protein are needed but you are not looking to overwhelm your body in bitterness.

Then, some spices, salt, vinegar, etc. are a good addition.

It is easy to be against boiling, but then you get hungry and that overwhelms any preconceptions of proper culinary technique.

My favourite way, for almost all vegetables, is:
Cut a mix of onion, garlic, often half a leek and a mix of different vegetables (picked wild, grown in the garden or store-bought);
heat some oil (sunflower oil, olive oil, sometimes a little butter mixed in);
fry the onion first, then add the garlic, stir a little and then add all other vegetables;
go on frying on high heat until it smells nice and the colour has changed a little;
then add a cup of bouillon (stock), bring it to boil, then lower the heat;
let it simmer, stir sometimes, when it's almost dry it's ready to serve;
serve with pasta, rice, other cooked grains or potatoes, whatever you want that day.

there are only a few 'weeds' I like raw in salads. And then most of the salad is a lettuce (can be lamb's lettuce or miner's lettuce from the garden) and a little bit of wild herbs are added to it, to spice it up. For example dandelion leaves (one large or two to three smaller ones), wild rocket, garlic mustard, chickweed.

One of my favorite salads is mixed mustard greens with dandelions, in red wine vinegar and olive oil dressing. There is a wild rocket plant outside the kitchen, too strong on its own but perfect in a sandwich.
A traditional Italian recipe for dandelions is blanching them first in boiling water (2 minutes, no more), then frying them in olive oil and garlic. Blanching cuts the bitterness.
Then goutweed. I can not have enough of it - in soups, stews, stir-fry, ...
Borage, chickweed, cleavers - sneaked in stews and soups when I cook, more tolerated than liked by the audience.
"Eel in the green" is a traditional dish along the river, the condition being mixing at least seven different green herbs in the sauce, excluding spinach.

Have a nice evening,
Oliver

Once we sauteyed our dandylion leaves with other things we can't go back to putting them in salads haha, they're just much tastier this way not just for my husband but for me too.