Wednesday, July 14, 2010

on peas


My farmer friend has been trying to convince people for ages on the merits of sugar snaps. i don't know why i resisted. snowpeas were always my favourite. until today when i began to wonder, while savouring the sweet nuggets inside a sugar snap pod, how peas that are all pod had any chance against the sugar snap.

we put them both in our annual july meal and the sugar snaps came out the sure winner. the meal is thai noodle salad and it's annual because now is the only time when every vegetable is fresh and local and quite possibly picked within 24 hours. in other words, delicious.

it's the kind of meal that after completely satisfying oneself on two hearty bowls, you are still tempted to take the entire pot of leftovers in your lap with a fork and continue eating. i think about this meal often in december when i am staring blankly at our fridge's vegetable drawer.

here's how it goes:
  • prepare the vegetables: green onions, cherry tomatoes, summer squash, sweet peppers, mushrooms, green peas. chop the peppers, squash, and mushrooms large enough to bbq and leave the tomatoes, green onions, and peas be. dress them all in olive oil and bbq.
  • boil the noodles; either soba or rice work well.
  • combine the sauce ingredients: soya sauce, rice vinegar, sesame oil, fish sauce, lime juice, brown sugar(or fruit juice), garlic, sambal (or sweet chili or hot sauce), and lime zest. [sorry no measurements. i did try to list them in order of most to least quantity. the key is to balance out the sweet versus sour and everyone has a different preference].
  • the meat is optional. we often use beef, a relatively small pepper steak which you can slather in a red curry rub if you wish.
  • combine all ingredients. you can cut up noodles to get it good and mixed. garnish with basil, thai basil if you have it, but genovese will do.

No comments:

Post a Comment