Recipe - Dandelion Root Pudding

Wintertime is a good time for us to go over our stores of wild food from the previous seasons and use them in some dishes and recipes. Here we used dandelion root powder to make a smooth, creamy, and deeply flavored pudding for dessert. We make the powder by digging up the long, tough taproot of dandelions in the spring or autumn, then scrubbing them well until they are free from dirt. Then they get roasted in a low temperature oven until they are dry, you will start to smell the wonderful coffee-chocolate-like aroma after about 30 minutes. Once the roots are totally dried and brittle, they get ground into powder using either the blender of a coffee grinder. The powder is then kept in a airtight jar until we want to use it to make a coffee-like hot drink or use the powder as a flavoring in other recipes.

For this pudding, we made a vegan pudding with a blend of almondmilk and coconut milk from the can, but you could use dairy milk as well. We also used weight measurements since they are far more accurate than volumetric measurements in many cases.

Dandelion Root Pudding-makes about 8 servings

200 g almondmilk
15 g dandelion root powder
200 g coconut milk (from a can)
70 g sugar
30 g coconut oil
25 g tapioca starch
1/2 tsp agar agar powder
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1. In a medium saucepan, add the almondmilk and dandelion root powder and simmer for 3 minutes. Remove from the heat and let it steep for 10 minutes. Filter the mixture through a coffee filter to remove the solids.
2. Add the almondmilk back to the saucepan and add the remaining ingredients. Bring the mixture up to a boil and cook for 3 minutes, stirring constantly.
3. Remove the pudding mixture from the heat and allow to cool to room temperature. It will thicken slightly and be a bit gooey.
4. Place the mixture in the blender and whir it for 30 seconds, until smooth. Pour the pudding into serving cups and chill in the refrigerator.