Dandelion salad with bacon and egg

Ingredients for 4 servings:

• 250 g dandelion, cleaned and cut into pieces of about 1.5 cm (up to 300 g)
• 200 g smoked belly, diced
• 4 eggs
• ½ baguette(s)
• rapeseed oil
• Ghee, clarified butter or clarified butter
• Balsamic vinegar or raspberry vinegar
• 100 ml sweet cream
• Pepper, ground
• possibly herbal salt
• 2 shallots (alternatively 1 onion), chopped
• 1 clove(s) garlic, chopped

Instructions

Working time approx. 15 minutes; Cooking/baking time approx. 5 minutes; Total time approx. 20 minutes

Salade de Pissenlit/Bettseechjeszalot

Clean the dandelion seeds thoroughly. Boil the eggs in boiling water for 10 minutes, peel them, and cut them into pieces/slices. Cut the baguette into 2cm thick rings, dice them, and then toast the croutons in a little clarified butter. They should be golden yellow but not greasy. Fry the bacon so that the fat renders out. Put the dandelion seeds in the salad bowl, add the bacon bits, the shallots, the garlic, the croutons, and finally the diced eggs. Season with 2 tablespoons of vinegar, a dash of cream, and black pepper. Mix everything together without waiting! I would like to explain that at home we only use cultivated, long-stemmed, yellow dandelions – I wouldn’t be sure if I had picked them myself, for example. When it comes to fertilizers or weed killers (or even dog pee, fox tapeworm, etc.), here in Luxembourg, you can find lettuce de pissenlit (Bettséechech Zalot) in every supermarket or at the weekly market. It’s a cultivated form that grows without the aid of light. Hence its light color, like chicory. If you can’t find dandelion lettuce, try chicory, which you cut into matchstick-sized sticks instead of rings (it looks similar to julienne).