Simple greens, Italian-style.
My favorite way to eat dandelions.
Here’s how to do it: Pick dandelion greens. Stick to plants that are not blooming if you don’t want them to be too bitter. Sturdy kitchen scissors are great for picking greens. (You can also use garden or farm-grown dandelion greens—they’ll be bigger and maybe a bit less bitter, but you won’t have the fun of snipping your lawn with scissors!) Wash dandelion greens. Soak them in a bowl of water, fish them out, and repeat with clean water until you don’t find any dirt on the bottom of the bowl. Heat a generous amount of olive oil in a skillet. You could also use lard or schmaltz. Goose fat is especially good. Saute the greens in the oil. Cook them until they’re as soft as you like. You may want to put a lid on the pan and steam them for a bit if they’re tough. Salt the greens to taste. Use good salt if you have it—I like unrefined sea salt. Chop a bunch of garlic. How much depends on how much you like garlic. Stir the garlic into the greens. I like to leave it basically raw, but you can keep cooking it for a minute or two if you like. Serve it forth, as they say in the old cookbooks.