Peas, peas, peas, peas, peas. Sugar snap peas and snow peas – we think. I planted snow peas, but some of the plants are producing peas that are pleasingly plump, and some of the plants are producing larger, flatter pea pods with strings. Both are sweet, so I guess it’s no matter! The both work in this Sugar Snap Pea Salad with Mint.
We pick peas every day. It is amazing that the peas ever make it into a dish because I eat so many while I’m picking, and so many more while I’m standing at the kitchen counter trimming off the stems and the strings. However, I have managed to put this Sugar Snap Pea Salad together a couple of times this week. The vinaigrette is lemony and mellow, but the salad is something else. Snap, crunch. Minty, sweet. It’s summer!
Sugar Snap Pea Salad with Mint
Ingredients
VINAIGRETTE
- 1/2 cup grapeseed oil
- 1/4 cup white balsamic vinegar
- 1 t sugar
- 1 lemon
- 1 3/4 t salt
- 1/2 t white pepper
SALAD
- 12 ounces sugar snap peas
- 1 red onion
- 1 cup fresh mint leaves
- 1 bunch fresh dill
Instructions
- Prep the peas – Destem and string the peas, as needed. Blanch them in boiling water for no longer than sixty seconds, and plunge them in ice water to arrest the cooking. Slice the pea pods. There's no wrong way to do it, but it's fun to see a cross section of peas and to have some of the peas roll out of their pods. It's all good.
- Make the vinaigrette and marinate the red onions – Zest and squeeze the lemon. Whisk the oil and vinegar together. Then add the lemon zest, 2 T of the lemon juice, the sugar, and the salt and pepper, and whisk again to emulsify and dissolve the sugar. Thinly slice the red onion and add it to the vinaigrette. Let onions marinate in the vinaigrette for about 15 minutes.
- Assemble the salad – add the peas to a medium bowl. Tear the mint leaves in to bite-sized pieces. Chop a handful of dill. Add the herbs to the bowl with the peas and toss. Pull the onions out of the vinaigrette with tongs and add to the bowl as well. Toss.
- Finish the salad – Pour some of the vinaigrette over the salad and give it a good toss. Taste, and add the rest of the vinaigrette to the salad if it's to your liking. Crumble the goat cheese and scatter it over the salad, giving it another quick toss before serving.
Notes
This Sugar Snap Pea Salad with Mint is perfect for entertaining because you can assemble it in advance. It’s special enough to serve along side a nice steak or a roasted chicken. A simple, exquisite meal. We enjoy it so much that we’re sowing a new crop of peas for an autumn harvest, something I’ve never done before. I spend so much time late in the summer not only tending to the garden, but also standing in the kitchen chopping, canning, blanching, freezing that I tend to run out of oomph. But the peas require no tending. You just shove the seeds in the ground and wait for the pea pods. No oomph required.