Common Dandelion - this is perhaps the most familiar and common wildflower in Russia. It grows almost everywhere, except, perhaps, in the most northern latitudes, and thanks to its unpretentiousness and vitality, it feels equally excellent both in a forest glade and in an urban flowerbed. And how much effort and time are spent by summer residents to fight this "malicious" invader of beds and flower beds, but only without much success. But what we have long been accustomed to thinking of as a “weed” is actually an inexhaustible storehouse of natural vitamins, minerals (such as calcium), trace elements, flavonoids, and essential oils. In cooking and in homeopathy, the whole plant is used - from roots to flowers. Wonderful salads, cabbage soup, okroshka are made from fresh herbs. Dandelion root has long been used in medicine as a cure for many, many ailments.
A salad of fresh dandelion leaves is undoubtedly very useful, but the real delicacy this sunny flower can treat us with is dandelion honey. It is prepared from blooming yellow heads, usually in May, when the dandelion blooms most actively. In appearance and taste, it really resembles real bee honey - the same languidly malleable, sweet, golden color, with a bright floral aroma. But not only culinary qualities are famous for dandelion jam . The benefits of this delicious product have long been appreciated by nutritionists and homeopaths. It is used as an additional therapeutic and prophylactic agent for many diseases of the gastrointestinal tract - gallstone disease, cholecystitis, hepatitis; as well as with kidney stones and urolithiasis; to normalize the thyroid gland. Dandelion honey for colds is irreplaceable - because by its properties it is very close to natural honey.
And dandelion jam is a real love potion! True, according to legend, not the first flowers that came across the road are suitable for him, but specially collected on the last Thursday of May, in an amount multiple of thirteen (a damn dozen). It is enough to treat your “sweetheart” with honey, cooked from them, in order to “dry up” her love forever.
And cooking “jam of love” is not so difficult and even hostesses inexperienced in culinary affairs can do it. But first you need to find a quiet and clean place to collect dandelions, as far as possible from the city, roads and railways. This is a very important condition - so that the collected raw materials are as clean as possible, since it is extremely undesirable to wash the flower heads before cooking, because then most of the useful pollen and nectar will simply be washed off. It is best to harvest in the morning, on a sunny day, because in cloudy and rainy weather the dandelion does not open its flowers completely.
It is advisable to prepare jam from dandelions immediately after collection, so that the heads do not have time to tighten and lose some of the beneficial properties. The collected flowers must be carefully sorted, cleaned of specks and insects, cut the green receptacle and stem.
The fastest and easiest jam recipe
400-450 collected dandelion heads, pour 400-450 ml of water and put on fire. After the jam boils, reduce the heat and, stirring, cook it for about five minutes. After this, remove the saucepan from the heat and strain the resulting broth thoroughly. Pour four cups of sugar into the “dandelion juice” prepared in this way and boil again. Cook, constantly stirring with a wooden spatula, ten minutes. Everything, honey is ready! It remains to cool it and pour into jars. Keep the finished dandelion jam preferably in the refrigerator.
Classic recipe
The collected flower heads (400-450 pieces) are placed in a saucepan, poured with a liter of water, add the juice of one lemon (or a teaspoon of citric acid), if desired, you can add a few cherry leaves for flavor. Bring to a boil and cook for another twenty minutes. After being removed from the heat and left to insist for a day. After this time, the broth is filtered from the petals, 800 g of sugar is added to it and again boiled, stirring, from half an hour to an hour - depending on how thick the honey is desired. The resulting jam is poured into jars.
Jam with petals
A very tasty recipe, however, you will have to tinker with it, but as a result, the jam will have a richer taste and aroma. To prepare it, you will need to collect 400-450 pcs. flowers. First of all, all the heads of the dandelion must be "gutted", that is, cleaned of pedicels, leaving only one petal. Put the selected flowers in an enameled saucepan, pour a liter of cold water, put on fire and cook on low heat for about half an hour. After this time, remove the jam from the stove, close the lid and leave for another six to eight hours. Then pour one kilogram of sugar into a saucepan and put on fire, stirring, until the sand completely dissolves. To give the dessert a milder taste, you can add lemon juice or a teaspoon of citric acid, and then cook the jam for another half hour.
Dandelion jam can also be used as an independent dessert, it will also be a wonderful addition to pancakes, pancakes, cottage cheese, or filling and impregnation of cakes when baking any confectionery.