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Fried Egg-Plant
DANDELIONS, (GERMAN STYLE).
Cut the roots from a quarter of a peck of dandelions, wash and cut as directed in the preceding recipe. Cut a quarter of a pound of ham in dice, fry until a golden brown; add one tablespoonful of vinegar. Beat one egg without separating, add to it two tablespoonfuls of cream, stir this quickly in with the ham, add a teaspoonful of onion juice, then the dandelions, stir over the fire one moment and serve very hot.
Dandelions also make a delightful salad. See directions under Salads.
A hot bacon-style dressing poured over bitter greens, thickened with egg and cream. It comes together in under a minute at the stove, so have everything cut and measured before the ham goes in the pan.
- A quarter peck of dandelionsA peck is 8 dry quarts, so a quarter peck is 2 quarts of loosely packed greens, perhaps half a pound or a little more once trimmed. They collapse dramatically; three or four modest side servings.
- The preceding recipeNot reproduced here, so its wording is unknown; this recipe borrows from it only the washing and cutting. Since the dandelions are stirred over the fire for just a moment, they were presumably already cooked and well drained before they meet the ham.
- Where the dandelions come fromPick only from ground you know has not been treated with herbicide or weedkiller and is well away from roadsides and dog paths. Young spring leaves gathered before the plant flowers are the sweetest; after blooming they turn aggressively bitter.
- Onion juiceA period shortcut for onion flavour without pieces: grate half an onion on the fine side of a box grater and press the pulp through a sieve. A teaspoonful takes roughly a quarter of a medium onion.
- The hinge is the egg and creamOnce the egg mixture goes into the hot pan it must be kept moving and off high heat, or it scrambles into curds instead of coating the greens. Pull the pan to the side of the burner before the egg goes in, stir until it just thickens, then add the greens.
- The hamA quarter pound of diced ham means a thick piece of cured, smoked ham with fat on it, not sliced deli ham. Its rendered fat is the frying medium; if the ham is lean, add a spoonful of butter or oil to the pan.
- Egg donenessThe egg is heated only briefly and may not reach a fully cooked temperature. If serving anyone who should avoid undercooked egg, use a pasteurized egg or hold the pan on gentle heat until the sauce visibly thickens and coats a spoon.
- VinegarCider vinegar suits this best. One tablespoon is modest for two quarts of bitter greens; taste at the end and add a little more if the dish reads flat.
Wilted dandelion greens with hot bacon or ham dressing is a dish of the Pennsylvania German kitchen, where it was eaten in early spring as the first green thing of the year and long regarded as a tonic after a winter of stored root vegetables and salt meat. The pattern — cured pork fried out, vinegar added to the fat, an egg-and-cream binder stirred in over the fire — is the same one behind hot slaw, and it turns up in nineteenth-century American cookery under labels like "German style" or "Dutch salad." That dandelions get their own entries, cooked and as salad, is a reminder that gathered greens were still ordinary market and garden produce in this period rather than a weed to be sprayed.