Snap Pea Salad with Fresh Mint
One of my greatest pleasures is heading out to the garden to pick something for dinner. It doesn't matter if it's just a few herbs or a big feed of veggies, nothing tops the feeling of growing your own food.
Today's harvest included some young salad greens, garlic scapes, fresh snap peas, a variety of edible blooms including marigold, johnny jump-ups, purple sage blossoms, tiny pink thyme flowers, and lots of fresh mint. I added a few lentils for some protein, and made this colourful salad for dinner.
When your herb garden is in bloom, use the flowers as you would the leaves, their flavour is often very similar and they are much prettier. For more information, check out this brief guide to edible flowers and a recipe for Pickled Chive Blossoms.
Start by preparing the dressing, it's just a simple lemony vinaigrette made with garlic scapes and fresh mint. When the scapes are in season I use them in place of garlic as much as possible. Garlic scapes also make a very addictive pesto.
Garlic Scape Mint Vinaigrette:
- 1/4 cup chopped garlic scapes (or 1 small clove garlic)
- 2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint
- 3 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
- 1/2 cup olive oil
- Pinch of salt
Combine the garlic scapes and mint in the bowl of a food processor fitted with the steel blade, and pulse to finely chop. You may need to scrape down the bowl a couple of times to ensure that there are no big pieces of garlic scape clinging to the sides.
Add the lemon juice and pulse a few times to combine, the mixture should be a wet paste at this point. If it's too dry add some more lemon juice. Add the olive oil gradually, with the machine running to emulsify the dressing. If your processor does not have a feedtube on the lid, transfer the mixture to a bowl and use a whisk to incorporate the oil. Pour with one hand and whisk with the other. To keep your bowl from slipping around, rest it on a damp kitchen towel.
Taste the dressing and correct the seasoning if necessary.
Fresh from the garden - baby lettuce, snap peas, lentils, fresh mint, scattered with edible flowers.
Snap Pea Salad with Lentils and Mint
Don't take these measurements as gospel, they are really more of a rough guide, feel free to adjust according what you have on hand. The greens could be arugula or spinach, substitute beans or chickpeas for the lentils, or use snow peas in place of snap peas, there is lots of room for experimentation here.
- 3 cups mixed baby greens
- 2 cups fresh snap peas, trimmed, strings removed
- 1/4 cup fresh mint leaves
- 1 cup cooked green lentils*
- a handful of pea shoots (totally optional)
- a handful of edible flowers (again, totally optional)
*you could substitute canned lentils for convenience sake, just be sure and rinse them.
Bring a large pot of unsalted water to the boil and blanch the the snap peas for 1-2 minutes, just until they turn bright green.
Drain the peas and quickly submerge them in a bowl of lightly salted ice water to season them and stop the cooking process. Once the peas have cooled, less than a minute, drain the ice water. If your snap peas are very small, you may want to leave them whole, I generally slice the larger ones in half.
In a big salad bowl toss the salad greens, snap peas, mint leaves, and lentils with enough dressing to thoroughly coat the vegetables. Remember, you can always add more, but its harder to take away if you've added too much dressing. So, just pour, toss, and taste. Repeat as necessary.
Garnish the salad with a few edible blooms or a few tender pea shoots if you're so inclined, and enjoy!
