Those wanting to use more wild-sourced ingredients in their cookery often ask questions like ‘where do I find recipes for …such and such…’. Whilst it’s true that many recipes for wild ingredients do exists and there are large sites catering for precisely this market, the real key to using wild-sourced ingredients in your cookery is to understand those ingredients.
Just like most good cooks will know that you can substitute plain flour with baking powder added for self-raising flour or you can substitute marjoram for oregano or turkey for pork, using wild ingredients is simply a process of knowing your ingredients and their characteristics. Once you know an ingredient, what it tastes like and how you can used it then you can simply substitute the wild ingredient in a normal recipe.
For example, young dandelion leaves are quite like bitter salad leaves. You can use them directly in any recipe calling for radiccio or endive. As salt counteracts bitterness in any food you can also blanch dandelion leaves in salted water and use as a spinach alternative.
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