Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Recipe - Snow Pea & Orange Salad

I harvested the first few handfuls of snow peas and a couple of heads of young lettuce yesterday.  Both are delicious fresh and raw, but I felt duly inspired and created a little salad as follows:

Ingredients:
Snow Peas (7-8 per plate)
Leaf Lettuce Mix
1 - 3 oranges (5-6 segments per plate)
Sesame Seeds
Sesame Oil
White Sugar
Soy Sauce

Process:
  1. Bring 2-3 quarts of well-salted water to a boil and prepare ice bath in large bowl to the side
  2. Blanch peas for 10 - 15 seconds.  Don't blanch too long or they will wilt.  Strain peas out and quickly place in ice bath until cool.  Trim peas and de-string.
  3. Using a very sharp knife, remove peels from oranges, making sure to take off the outer membrane of the fruit and all of the white bitter tissue.  Now cut at angles to remove each segment of the orange.  Store in bowl with juice squeezed from orange centers.
  4. In a saucepan, heat a small amount of sesame oil.  Toast sesame seeds in oil until golden brown.  Remove from heat.
  5. In the same saucepan, heat reserved orange juice, a splash of soy sauce, and white sugar to taste (2-4 Tbsp. ish) on medium-high heat stirring enough to keep it from burning.  Reduce until you get an almost syrupy glaze.
  6. After all ingredients have cooled, combine oranges, peas, and glaze.  Mix well.  Toss lettuce with enough sesame oil to cover and salt and pepper to taste.
  7. Grab small handfuls of lettuce by pinching it together and place in center of plate.  Top with glazed pea and orange mixture and sprinkle with toasted sesame seeds.
  8. Enjoy!

2 comments:

  1. That sounds really good! My corn is about 6 inches tall and my concord grapes are taking off. I'm really excited about the grapes. One of my pots is an "ode to weeds and pests" i'm hoping they'll all go there to munch and thrive. We'll see. Enjoying your blog! Aunt jennifer

    ReplyDelete
  2. Andrew - I think culinary school is in order. Also, please order up some sunshine. The weeds are winning the battle in our yard. we've degenerated into token efforts to maintain some level of social acceptability. Thanks for the posts - keep it going.

    ReplyDelete