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Spinach, Dandelion Leaves Dressed Like
When spinach is out of season, dandelion leaves may be substituted for it. The young leaves only should be used, and they may be boiled and served just like spinach. As they shrink very much in boiling, a large quantity will be required for a moderate-sized dish. Turnip-tops, beetroot-tops, and even young nettles, as we have remarked elsewhere, may all be used as substitutes for spinach.
A substitution note rather than a formula: the method is simply boiled greens, and everything that matters is in the sourcing and the timing.
- Quantity and shrinkageCassell's warning is not exaggerated — leafy greens lose roughly nine-tenths of their bulk. Reckon on about 1 lb (450 g) of raw leaves per two people as a side dish, which is a very large bagful of dandelion.
- Young leaves onlyThis is the hinge. Once the plant sends up a flower stalk the leaves turn sharply bitter and the midribs go stringy. Pick the small pale inner rosette leaves in early spring, before flowering, and strip out any thick ribs.
- TimingVictorian instructions for spinach ran to ten or fifteen minutes in a large pot of water. Two to three minutes in plenty of boiling salted water is enough for dandelion; longer and it goes grey and flat. Drain hard, press out the water, then chop and finish with butter.
- Managing the bitternessIf the leaves are past their first youth, boiling in two changes of water, or a brief blanch before the final cooking, tames them considerably s — a treatment commonly used for bitter greens in several European kitchens. Salt, butter and a little lemon or vinegar all help.
- NettlesYoung nettle tops are genuinely good this way, and boiling destroys the sting completely. Wear gloves to pick and wash them, take only the top four leaves of a young plant, and use nothing that has flowered.
- Where you gatherThe one part of this recipe that has changed since 1900. Avoid roadside verges, field margins that may be sprayed, and ground used by dogs. Be certain of identification: dandelion has a single unbranched hollow stalk per flower and milky sap, and several lookalikes in the same family are unpleasantly tough or bitter.
- Beetroot and turnip topsBoth are excellent and now often discarded. Turnip tops want the same short boil; beet tops cook fast, and the stems benefit from a minute's head start on the leaves.
Cassell's is writing for households that ate seasonally by necessity: spinach ran out, and the gap between the last winter greens and the first spring sowings was filled from the hedgerow and the kitchen garden's leavings. Dandelion \ from the French dent de lion, for the toothed leaf \ was a well-established pot-herb and salad plant in both Britain and France, where blanched pissenlit was and remains a market vegetable; nettles and beet and turnip tops belonged to the same tradition of eating what was to hand. The point of the entry is a general one about substitution, a habit of mind that a Victorian cook needed and a modern shopper with year-round spinach has largely lost.