Recipe: Pea Greens & Radish Salad with Yoghurt Mint Dressing

Pea Greens and Radish Salad with Yoghurt Mint Dressing

Climbing, curling, crawling? peas, like other plants that climb, are full of remarkable determination. If they don’t have anything to climb up, they keep growing anyways, sometimes even twisting together, using one another for support. It’s their nature, and with or without structure they follow that instinct to twist and climb and ramble. There is a very springlike energy in their frantic quest forward: even though they may not know exactly where they are going, they never lose sight of that drive to move ever onward.

Like many spring foods, pea greens offer us that most tender first growth, the new quality that we look forward to and savour because it happens only once a year. For something so determined, these baby greens are remarkably tender.

Makes 4 servings

Ingredients
? kg pea greens, tough stems removed, roughly chopped
? kg red radishes, thinly sliced
fresh whole mint leaves, for garnish

For the dressing
125g plain yoghurt
60ml olive oil
12g finely chopped chives or scallions
5g finely chopped fresh mint
20ml raw apple cider vinegar
salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method
Put the pea greens in a bowl and arrange the radish slices on top.

Prepare the dressing: Combine the yoghurt, oil, chives, mint, vinegar, and salt and pepper to taste in a jar or bowl and shake or mix well. If the dressing is too thick, add a little water (up to 1 tbsp) to thin it.

Drizzle the dressing over the salad and toss well. Garnish with mint leaves. Any extra dressing can be stored in the refrigerator, where it will keep for up to 5 days. It goes well with other salads, steamed vegetables, and grains.

Extracted from Recipes from the Herbalist’s Kitchen – by Brittany Wood Nickerson (Storey Publishing, approx €17.50). Photography – Keller+Keller photography, used with permission from Storey Publishing.