Your neighbors will love you for picking all their dandelions! Here is a sweet revenge for your never ending battle with the dandelions: a dandelion syrup.
The syrup has a very distinct flavor that you cannot compare to anything else. And as I found out, when passing the syrup around to friends and family for a taste test, there used to be a hard candy in northern Japan that seemed to taste just like it. But that candy was popular with our grandmother’s generation and I don’t know if it is still available…
Here is the recipe:
Amount: ~1/2 cup
Preparation time: 1 hour (plus overnight soaking)
Cooking time: ~1/2 hour
Ingredients:
- ~ 4 oz. dandelion flowers
- 2 cups water
- lemon zest of 1/2 lemon
- lemon juice of 1/2 lemon
- ~ 4 oz. white sugar
- ~ 4 oz. brown sugar
Cooking Instructions:
1. Collect ~ 4 oz. of fully blooming yellow dandelion flowers. If the flower is still a bit closed it will make it difficult to pull out the yellow petals.
2. Shake out the dandelion flowers to remove any debris or insects. Pull out the yellow petals and toss the green flower bud and leaves because they are bitter. Yields about ~ 2 oz. of petals.
3. Take a small pot and add the water, lemon zest and dandelion petals and bring it to a boil. Cook for about 7 min. Take the pot off the stove, cover and let sit for about 12 hours or overnight.
4. Drain the mixture, remove flower petals and zest (I used a french press), and return the liquid to the pot. About 1.5 cups of liquid are left.
5. Add the lemon juice and sugar and bring to a boil. Then slowly reduce the liquid to about half its volume or your desired syrup thickness. Yields about 1/2 – 3/4 cup of syrup.
6. If you want to preserve the syrup for later use, have a cleaned and preheated jar ready into which you pour the boiling hot liquid. Watch out! This is very hot. Immediately close the jar and set it on an insulated pad to cool off. It will keep for about 8 months in a cool and dark place.
Tip: I wouldn’t make more than 2 cups of strained liquid at a time as it will take a long time for it to reduce and you run into the danger of a too thin syrup or it crystallizes.
Enjoy your own dandelion syrup over pancakes, oat meal, toast, etc. Bon Apetit!
You ought to submit this to our recipe contest!
Hello,
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Janu
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