The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Spring freshness into the kitchen
5 early season ingredients and some easy ways to use them.
Ingredients and their availability can tell you a lot about time and place. In a country where it’s easy to buy a lemon no matter where you are and no matter what time of year, it can be hard to remember how food and the seasons are closely tied.
When it comes to spring, there are certain items such as tender green shell peas that help us stretch toward the light after a long winter. And then there are ingredients such as asparagus that are available pretty much everywhere, all the time, but taste so especially good in season. In noticing the distance between the okay and amazing, and the pleasure of celebrating something when it has a small window of time, there’s a valuable life lesson.
Some of the best — and my favorite — spring ingredients are a mix of the readily available and the fleeting. From eggs to sweet crab, the five featured in the accompanying recipes are all wonderfully versatile — so much so that easy variations showcase their range and will encourage your own creativity.
The shaved asparagus salad (which could easily be thinly sliced asparagus salad) is dressed with a North African-inspired mixture of preserved lemons, their brine, honey, olive oil and is sprinkled with pistachios. If you can make that, you also can lean toward Italy and use fresh lemon juice instead of the preserved lemon and substitute pine nuts and Parm for the pistachios. Or leave Western flavors altogether and make an easy mixture of toasted sesame oil, rice vinegar and soy sauce, then shower the stalks with sesame seeds.
One of the simplest ways to turn rhubarb from sour and tough to sweet and yielding is to chop it and simmer it with sugar and water. This mixture can be strained and mixed with lime juice and seltzer for a pink twist on a Lime Rickey, or mixed with the same plus some tequila for the most beautiful margarita (throw it in the blender, if you wish, and salt the rims of your glasses). Or you can puree the poached rhubarb with its syrup and fresh strawberries and freeze the mixture to make a granita that has all the flavor of strawberry-rhubarb pie without all the fuss of making one.
Peas and mint have been friends for a long time, but I like to combine them with spinach, ginger, cilantro and fish sauce for a more Vietnamese approach. Add cumin seeds and a dollop of yogurt, and you’re transported to India. Swap extra garlic for the ginger and basil for the herbs, and you’ve got a simple Italian side dish. Fresh peas shine in all of these, but frozen peas make these recipes good anytime.
I eat eggs nearly every day, but a soft-boiled one feels like the best way to honor a really fresh spring egg. Soft-boiled ones with their luxurious yolks, especially, can stand up to bold flavors. My favorite thing to do is to combine them not only with something assertive, but also something rich and fatty to make them extra indulgent. Enter avocado and kimchi … or butter and anchovies … rich yogurt and a spritz of bright lemon. Anything goes. Eat these combinations on toast or with nutty cooked grains for some texture contrast.
Crab might be the most indulgent spring ingredient of all. My mantra is that when I splurge, I make it worth it. The featured salad is a mixture of crabmeat, small potatoes and watercress, all bound with a mustardy, lemony, creme fraiche dressing. It’s what I imagine ladies who lunch eat, but I’d rather spend my money on crab than a mediocre salad. The crab and potatoes can be smashed into cakes that you panfry and serve with the sauce for dipping. Or swap spaghetti for potatoes and let the lemon pour down for the most delicious pasta.
From my kitchen to yours, spring.