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A lawn full of free food

The dandelion is probably the most dismissed plant in Britain. It is dug out, sprayed, cursed and mown flat, yet it is one of the most useful wild foods on the doorstep, and it is almost impossible to confuse with anything dangerous. Every part can be eaten: the leaves, the buds, the flowers and the root. What changes is when you pick it and how you treat it, because a dandelion leaf in April and a dandelion leaf in July might as well be two different ingredients.

The old French nickname pissenlit gives a clue to its mild diuretic properties, so it is best enjoyed as part of a meal rather than in enormous quantities, particularly if you take medication for blood pressure or the kidneys.

Picking leaves at their best

Dandelion leaves are at their sweetest and least bitter before the plant flowers, roughly from late February through to April. Look for a flat rosette of hairless, deeply toothed leaves, each tooth pointing backwards towards the base. The name comes from the French dent de lion, or lion's tooth, and that shape is the simplest identification test. If the leaves feel distinctly hairy and the teeth are shallow, you have cat's-ear instead; it is harmless, but wiry and less pleasant.

Break a stem and you should see thin white milky sap, and each flower sits on a single hollow stalk, not a branching stem. That milk is bitter, which is why older leaves need cooking rather than tossing raw.

There is a neat trick for taming them. Cover a patch of plants with a flowerpot, a bucket or a thick piece of slate for a week or two. Denied light, the new growth comes through pale, tender and much milder, and you can lift the pot and cut a clean crop with scissors. Plants growing in deep shade, at the base of a hedge or under trees, are also noticeably sweeter.

Dandelion leaves in the salad bowl

Use the youngest leaves raw, and use them sparingly at first, because the peppery bite is real. A good handful torn into a bowl with watercress and baby spinach gives a salad far more character than a bag of supermarket leaves. They stand up well to fat and acid, which is why the classic pairings work so well:

• Warm bacon lardons, a poached egg and a mustard vinaigrette
• Crumbled blue cheese, toasted walnuts and sliced pear
• Grated raw beetroot, orange segments and a honey dressing
• Thinly sliced radish, spring onion and a lemon and rapeseed oil dressing

Dress the leaves at the last moment; they wilt quickly once the dressing goes on. For a gentler introduction, blanch the leaves for thirty seconds in boiling water, refresh them in cold water and squeeze dry, which strips out much of the bitterness.

Larger leaves are best treated as a cooking green. Blanch, then sauté in butter or olive oil with garlic and a pinch of chilli, or shred them into a soup with potato and a little cream. The unopened buds, picked tight and small, can be pickled in the same way as capers and are excellent with cheese.

Flowers for syrup and fritters

Pick flowers on a dry, sunny late morning when they are fully open. Only take fully open heads, and shake them gently to dislodge the insects that live in them; a spell on a tea towel gives any stragglers time to leave.

For syrup, pull the yellow petals away from the green base, because the base and sepals are fiercely bitter. Steep roughly 100g of petals in 500ml of just-boiled water for an hour, strain, then add 500g of sugar and the juice of a lemon per 500ml of liquid. Heat gently until the sugar dissolves, then simmer for ten to fifteen minutes until it coats a spoon. The lemon keeps the colour bright gold rather than grey. Bottle it and use it on pancakes, in gin, or stirred into yoghurt. Cook it a little longer, until thick like runny honey, and you have dandelion honey for toast.

Fritters are the simplest treat of all. Make a batter from 100g plain flour, one egg, 150ml milk or sparkling water and a pinch of salt. Trim the green base from the flower heads, dip them in the batter and fry for about two minutes on each side until golden. Drain on kitchen paper and eat warm, either dusted with caster sugar and lemon or with a garlicky yoghurt dip.

Dandelion wine, honey and other keepsakes

Dandelion wine is the long game, and worth it. You will need about two litres of petals, four and a half litres of water, 1.5kg of sugar, the juice and zest of two lemons, 250g of chopped raisins, wine yeast and yeast nutrient. Pour boiling water over the petals, leave for two days, then strain, add the sugar and lemon, and once cool add the raisins and yeast. Ferment under an airlock, rack it after a few weeks, then leave it to mature for at least a year. It drinks like a light, floral white wine.

The root has its own following. Dug in autumn from ground you have permission to dig, scrubbed, sliced and roasted until dark and brittle, it grinds into a passable coffee substitute with a bitter, nutty edge.

Pick kindly, pick safely

Location matters more than technique. Avoid roadside verges, which catch exhaust and spray drift, and steer clear of parks, playing fields and pavements where councils spray weedkiller or dogs are walked. Fields recently treated with herbicide are out too. Aim for clean, unsprayed ground: your own garden, a friendly allotment, a quiet hedgerow well away from traffic.

Picking leaves, flowers and fruit for personal use is generally permitted in the UK, but digging up roots and picking on protected sites or private land requires permission, so ask first and always leave plenty behind for the bees and for next year's crop. Wash everything well, check a reliable field guide until you are confident, and start with a small amount. Once you have made one jar of golden syrup, that "weed" outside the back door starts to look very different.