58. Sugar Snap Peas with Pine Nuts and Garlic

Date Cooked: January 25, 2009
Page: 173
Rating: B+

My memories of peas for the most part include horrible nightmares of brown mushy canned peas. I don’t recall eating them at home much but my grandmother always served them and I really loathed them. Although it has been many years since I was exposed to the unpleasant smell of those little gross peas every time I think peas, I think canned. Then slowly the vibrant green of frozen peas works its way in. The only other type of pea I have in memory are snow peas. In fact I always thought that sugar snap peas and snow peas were the same. Never gave it much thought… until I decided to buy sugar snap peas. Turns out they are different. In fact sugar snap peas look like beans. So on this day I had learned that peas come in one more form for my memory to store. And after this recipe I am really hoping that when I think peas I think sugar snap.

This was a rather straight forward recipe. My wife tediously snipped the tips of the peas and then they were quickly blanched. I am not a good judge of timing (as I have bemoaned often in the past) so the peas might have been cooked a tad too long. They received a nice dunk in an ice water bath before being spread out on some paper towel to dry.

Since I was preparing a full diner that night from the book, they were able to sit for a bit until they were ready to be finished off. Into a skillet of oil with toasted pine nuts and garlic they were sautéed until warmed through and then plated to be served.

Rating: B+. These were very good and accompanied the meal well. I will make these again. I’ve also determined that I like pine nuts. Something up until this point I don’t really recall eating before.