In this weekly series, home cook Bruce Watson works his way through a decades-old family cookbook, adapting the best recipes exclusively for Slashfood.
When I was a kid, pea season was a mixed blessing. On the bright side, it meant that we would get fresh sweet peas on the table. Whether from our family garden or from a local farmers' market, the just-harvested peas were invariably sweet, crunchy and delicious. On the other hand, our regular servings of fresh peas translated into hours spent on the porch shelling the bright green pods. Even under the best circumstances, it was dull, tedious work.
My mother's pea salad recipe, which combines the sweetness of peas with the light flavor of dill, tended to overshadow the peas with a heavy helping of sour cream, mayonnaise and scallions. My modified version, included below, lets the flavor of the peas shine through, but retains the original's cool summer flavors.
Get the recipe for dilled pea salad after the jump.
Pea Salad
3 cups cooked peas (see note)
2 tablespoons sour cream
1/4 cup, plus 2 tablespoons Greek yogurt
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
1/2 cup fresh dill, finely chopped
2 teaspoons finely chopped scallions
1/4 teaspoon cumin
Mix sour cream, yogurt, mayonnaise, dill and scallions thoroughly. Toss with peas and serve immediately.
Note: For my first batch, I spent most of an afternoon shelling fresh peas, which I then blanched and dried. However, I found that frozen peas, defrosted at room temperature and drained thoroughly, made a great substitution.
