I know this is barely a recipe, but the peas are so sweet and beautiful right now, that I wanted to remind you, just in case you haven’t been enjoying the peas at your local farmer’s market, and just in case you haven’t tried cooking with mint, that you should do so.  Right now, before it’s too late!

I served these with the tilapia with cilantro butter I shared last week, but it’s the perfect accompaniment for any fresh spring meal.

Fresh English Peas with Mint

My problem is always knowing how much to buy — when they’re in their shells, it’s just so hard to tell, and it varies with the peas, too!  For just the two of us, I bought about 2 big 2-hands handfuls, which I think was maybe a pound. But your pea-vendor can probably help you out with this.

1 cup of shelled peas
2 T chopped mint
1 chopped shallot, or a couple chopped green garlics (also fleetingly in season right now!)
butter
salt

Melt a couple teaspoons butter over medium heat. Cook the shallot or garlic in the butter until just softened, but not brown. Add the peas, mint, a little sprinkling of water, maybe a tablespoon, and salt to taste. Cover and bring to a simmer. Cook for just a couple minutes over low heat, until the peas are just tender. Watch out! — It’s easy to overcook them, but you want them to have that nice, crisp, springtime texture. That’s it! A delicious side, in way less time than it took to shell them.

Tags: herbs, Side Dish, spring, Vegetable, vegetarian

This entry was posted on Friday, May 8th, 2009 at 7:21 am and is filed under Recipes, Side Dish, Vegetable. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.