Lemony Pea and Radish Salad with Mint
Hi again! Sorry I’ve been missing for so long. I’ve had an extraordinary year, and mostly I just haven’t had a great setup for taking photos of all the wonderful food I’ve been cooking.
A friend scolded me and then mailed me a light box, with the condition that I use it to start posting my recipes here again for her to make. Um. Sorry, and thank you! It arrived two days ago, so please consider this my first grateful payment!
I am obsessed with this salad. It’s a pretty drastic adaptation from a recipe in one of the Ottolenghi cookbooks, which I’ve been obsessed with ever since I had the pleasure of eating at one of their locations when visiting London a few years ago. It’s vivid and intense and refreshing all at the same time.
In adapting it from the original, I removed green beans and baby chard (insufficiently crisp!), and added radishes (more crisp!) and lemon juice (more vivid!), and used mint (more refreshing!) instead of tarragon (insufficiently refreshing!).
Simple to make, and it simply wakes me up and makes me happy. Enjoy!
Lemony Pea and Radish Salad with Mint
(loosely adapted from Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi)
Ingredients
~12 thinly sliced radishes (the pink-skinned, round-ish ones) (1 bunch, hereabouts)
1 1/2 C snow peas, trimmed (snap off and discard the hard ends)
1 lb fresh or frozen green peas (honestly, I use one bag of the frozen ones)
2 tsp coriander seeds, roughly crushed
1 tsp mustard seeds
3 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp nigella seeds
1/2 small red onion, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, crushed
zest from 1 lemon
1 tbsp chopped fresh mint leaves (not quite finely, but not quite coarsely either)
coarse sea salt to taste
lemon juice to taste
Directions
1. Fill a medium-large pot with water and bring to a boil. Salt it as if you were making pasta.
2. Set up a large bowl with ice-cold water.
2. Once the water comes to a boil, blanch the snow peas for 1 minute, then remove and shock in the cold water to stop the cooking.
3. Refresh the cold water and water for the pot to return to a boil.
4. Blanch the peas for 20 seconds then again remove and shock in the cold water to stop the cooking.
5. Combine the peas and snow peas in a large bowl.
6. Sizzle the mustard and coriander seeds in the olive oil in a pan just until the seeds start to pop, then pour the oil and seeds over the beans. Stir.
7. Stir in all other ingredients EXCEPT the salt and lemon juice.
8. Season with salt and lemon juice to taste when serving. If you want to save the leftovers, do not season them – only season each serving as you eat it.
One of the people I fed this to tonight said it made him feel better about himself to eat it because it was so healthy. I concur.