Portulaca oleracea L.

Leaves, seeds

Leaves and stems: raw or cooked. The young leaves are a very acceptable addition to salads, their mucilaginous quality also making them a good substitute for okra as a thickener in soups. The leaves have a somewhat sour flavor, a spicy and somewhat salty taste.

Seed: raw or cooked. The seed can be ground into a powder and mixed with cereals for use in gruels, bread, pancakes etc.

The young leaves are used in salads, soups. As a food supplement: fresh leaves covered with bee honey are eaten.

The sauce is also prepared from the leaves, adding yogurt and cucumbers.

Rumex acetosa L.

Flowers, leaves, roots, seeds

Curdling agent. Leaves: raw or cooked. They make a thirst-quenching on their own, or can be added to salads, used as a potherb or pureed, in sauces and used in soups. A delicious lemon-like flavor, liked by most people who try them, they can be rather overpowering in quantity and are more generally used as a flavoring in mixed salads. The leaves can also be dried for later use. The juice of the leaves can be used as a curdling agent for milks. Flowers: cooked as a vegetable or used as a garnish.

Root: cooked. It is dried, ground into a powder and made into noodles. Seed: raw or cooked. Ground into a powder and mixed with other flours to make bread.

The leaves are widely used in soups (borscht), especially spring green borscht (prepared mainly from weeds). It is used, including as an acidifying agent for soups. The young and fresh leaves are used in salads, pie fillings, vegetable stews, sauces, sarmale.

Taraxacum officinale L.

Flowers, leaves, root

Leaves: raw or cooked. Tender young leaves are considerably less bitter than older leaves. The leaves are often blanched (by excluding light from the growing plant) before use. Root: raw or cooked. Bitter. A turnip-like flavor. The roots of 2-year-old plants are harvested in the autumn, dried and roasted to make a very good coffee substitute. Flowers: raw or cooked. A rather bitter flavor, the unopened flower buds can be used in fritters and they can also be preserved in vinegar and used like capers. Both the leaves and the roots are used to flavor herbal beers and soft drinks. A pleasant tea is made from the flowers. They are also used to make wine. The leaves and the roots can also be used to make tea.

The young dandelion leaves were and are used for salads, in omelettes. The boiled leaves are used in soups and broths, teas.

The flowers are used to make wine or jam, and the crushed and roasted root can be used to make an energizing infusion with an effect similar to black tea. It was consumed more widely during the war and after the war, when hunger was rampant. Now, the dandelion enjoys a new life, being more and more frequently used in the daily diet of Moldovans.

Urtica dioica L.

Leaves, oil

Couloring, drinh, oil, curling agent

Young leaves: cooked as a potherb and added to soups etc. The young shoots harvested in the spring when 15 - 20 cm long complete with the underground stem are very nice. The plants are harvested commercially for extraction of the chlorophyll, which is used as a green coloring agent (E140) in foods and medicines. The juice of the leaves, or a decoction of the herb, can be used as a rennet substitute in curdling plant milks. Nettle beer is brewed from the young shoots [34] .

One of the best known and most used spontaneous plant.

Egg stew is most often made from the leaves of the young plant, but it is also used in the preparation of soups, omelets, meatballs, pie fillings, sauces, etc. Leaf teas are also made.

Currently the leaves are also used for risotti, tarts, smoothies, pesto.

Tussilago farfara

Flowers, leaves, oil

Flower buds and young flowers: raw or cooked. A pleasant aniseed flavor, they add a distinctive aromatic flavor to salads.

Young leaves: raw or cooked. They can be used in salads, added to soups, or cooked as a vegetable. The leaves have a bitter taste unless they are washed after being boiled. An aromatic tea is made from the fresh or dried leaves and flowers. It has a liquorice-like flavor. The dried and burnt leaves are used as a salt substitute. The slender rootstock is candied in sugar syrup.

The most well-known use is due to the leaves, for packing the găluci (rustic name of the current Moldovan sarmales or internationally known variant—dolma) [44] .