I tend to cook most nights and am fortunate to have one of the most supportive partners, in eating and life, one could hope for. She greets everything with wide eyes and an “Oh, baby!” before it even gets to the table, even the misfires like my ongoing trials with thai peanut sauce. It’s pretty rare that I get to genuinely surprise her, though, as was the case with this side dish of sugar snap peas with mint, which we now excitedly refer to as “minty peas”.

This is a side that was meant for spring, with the sweet peas lifted by fresh mint and a little lemon zest. You’ve probably been roasting gourds and root vegetables since October; it’s time to brighten up a bit.

There are two techniques, both quick and simple, to getting this right. The first is to chiffonade¹ the mint into fine strips. The easiest way to do this is to pick the mint leaves from the stem, stack 6-8 or so together, roll them tightly, and cut them across the rolled bundle. Pick out any of the center stems that stick out and you’ll have a nice nest of mint. This technique works well with most herbs and leafy things, like collards.

Blanching is the other, and it’s one of my favorites, especially this time of year. With fresh, green vegetables, I like to use the big-pot blanching technique championed by Thomas Keller in his wonderful Ad Hoc at Home — it keeps fresh vegetables crisp and forces a brilliant green color. The key is to use a big pot of very salty water (Keller recommends 1 cup of kosher salt to 1 gallon of water) at a rolling boil to cook the vegetable as quickly as possible. Using lots of water helps to keep the temperature of the water from dropping when you add the vegetables so that they cook quickly. Lastly, prep an ice bath to submerge the vegetables in once they’re done so that they don’t overcook.

I like to dress the peas, either in a flavorful oil like a fruity olive oil or something nutty like walnut or hazelnut, or mix a very simple vinaigrette.

• 1 pound of sugar snap peas
• 8-10 fresh mint leaves
• 1 tablespoon flavorful oil (fruity olive, walnut or hazelnut)
• pinch of salt
• 1 teaspoon of fresh lemon juice (optional)
• lemon zest (optional)

1. Set a big pot of water, at least a gallon, on high heat.
2. While the water’s coming to temperature, snap the stem ends off the peas and pull the attached “string” down the full length of the pea.
3. Chiffonade the mint leaves by stacking them on top of one another, rolling them tight, and slicing them into thin ribbons. Discard any tough-looking stems.
4. If using the lemon juice, mix a vinaigrette by slowly adding the oil to the juice and constantly whisking with a fork to create an emulsion. Add a pinch of salt and whisk some more.
5. Prepare an ice bath of equal parts water and ice (a full ice cube tray is about right).
6. When the water is at full boil, add a cup of kosher salt per gallon of water and stir. Waiting until the water is fully boiling will keep the salt from pitting your cookware.
7. Add the sugar snap peas and watch carefully for them to turn bright green, about 1-2 minutes in. Fish one out and taste it - it should be crisp and sweet but not raw.
8. Drain the peas and quickly submerge in the ice bath until they’ve cooled, about five minutes, then drain and dry on a paper towel.
9. Toss in a large bowl with the oil or vinaigrette. Add the mint chiffonade, a pinch of salt and lemon zest (if using) and stir to combine.

1. The French chiffon refers to either a delicate silk or, more simply, to rags. Chiffonade means literally “made from rags”, a reference to the appearance of the herbs after they’ve been cut. Technically, it’s improper grammar to use chiffonade as a verb, though it’s common enough in the parlance of the kitchen. ↩

When you’re cooking to make an impression, as I suspect some of you may be this Valentine’s Day, it’s especially important that your dish look as good as it tastes. The expression “you eat first with your eyes” wouldn’t be cliche if there weren’t some truth to it.

This roasted beet and blood orange salad is certainly colorful but it also brings together a mix of winter flavors — sweet and earthy beets with just a little sharpness from blood oranges. Complete with a mix of spicy greens with a few herbs and some crunchy almond slivers.

I like to use golden beets here so that I have an excuse to use my favorite citrus, the blood orange, but you can certainly invert those colors with red or chioggia beets and a more traditional orange.

A little heads up: roasting then cooling the beets will take you about an hour to an hour and a half, mostly unattended, but it’s not like you can just whip this one up right before serving the main course. The beets and the dressing can be prepared well ahead of time, though.

Your ingredients:

• 3 medium golden beets (red or chioggia will work, or a mix)
• 2 blood oranges, sectioned, juices reserved
• A few handfuls of spicy greens, like a mix of arugula, spinach, frisée and baby lettuces
• A few fresh herbs like dill, cilantro or mint
• 1 tablespoon of good extra virgin olive oil
• 3 tablespoons of canola oil
• Juice of 1 meyer lemon
• 1 teaspoon of champagne vinegar
• 1/2 a clove of garlic or shallot, diced
• Slivered almonds

First things first, preheat the oven to 400. Place the beets in the middle of a sheet of foil big enough to wrap them and drizzle them with canola oil. If you’re using a mix of colors of beets, wrap each one separately to keep the colors distinct. Seal the beets in the foil packages and roast them in the oven for 50-60 minutes.

While the beets are roasting, section the oranges, saving as much of the juice as you can by scraping it from the cutting board into a glass and squeezing out the core of the orange. Chill the orange suprêmes in the fridge.

A word here about vinaigrette dressing. What you’re aiming for is an emulsion of an acid, in this case the juice of the meyer lemon and blood orange with a little champagne vinegar, in a fat, canola oil. Oil and vinegar don’t naturally like to combine but with careful attention and a slow hand, you can make it work beautifully.

Dice the garlic or shallot. Mix the garlic (or shallot) with a pinch of kosher salt, one teaspoon of meyer lemon juice, 1 teaspoon of blood orange juice and 1 teaspoon of champagne vinegar. You are more than welcome to adjust to your liking (if you don’t have champagne vinegar, for instance, feel free to go with 2 teaspoons blood orange juice, 1 teaspoon meyer lemon juice), just make sure you end up with 3 teaspoons at the end.

Measure out 3 tablespoons of canola oil, preferably into a container with a spout that will let you pour it slowly (I find that a glass Pyrex liquid measuring cup works brilliantly for this).

Slowly, starting with just a few drops at a time working to a thin drizzle, pour the canola oil into the juice/acid mixture, constantly whisking with a fork. You really can’t go too slowly here or whisk too much.

Back to the beets. Before you pull them out of the oven, prepare an ice bath that’s equal parts ice and water in a medium sized bowl. Check the beets for doneness — if a paring knife easily slides through them, they’re done. Let them cool until you can handle them (about 5-10 minutes) then peel them while they’re still warm. The easiest way is to slice the top then scrape the sides with the sharp edge of a knife, the peel should come right off, and then slice off the bottom. Cut the beets in half lengthwise, then each half in half again lengthwise, then each quarter across the middle for 8 cube-ish pieces. Cool them in the ice bath for at least 15 minutes, again, keeping them separate if using a mix of colors.

Coarsely shred the greens and herbs into bite-sized pieces then rinse and dry them. Put them in a dry bowl then drizzle the olive oil along the side of the bowl, not directly on the greens, then add a pinch of salt and use a pair of tongs or your hands to mix the greens with the oil. The oil will add a little complexity and mouth-feel to the greens without weighing them down too much.

Drain the beets and drizzle them in the vinaigrette and mix to combine. Start the plates with a bed of the greens (let any excess oil drip off before plating) then add the beets, then the blood orange sections, arranged to your liking. Roughly crumble the almonds over top and season with a pinch of kosher salt and a few grinds of black pepper.

This will be a beautiful, simple but elegant start to dinner.

Boiled potatoes, that’s all they are. The reason I name then in Italian is that they deserve a bit of fancying-up, because they’re a good vehicle for discussion of simple ingredients, and because this recipe, like all the best ones, is based on a memory. The memory is of my Sardinian uncle Salvatore eating this three-ingredient dish as an afternoon snack. At twelve-year old, I was horrified. As an adult, I understand.

So, potatoes. What to do with them? Many foods have one “dominant dimension”, a spectrum from A to B; “dry” versus “sweet” wine, for instance. For potatoes, the most important such dimension is starchiness vs. waxiness.

Starchy potatoes are typically seen as “bakers”; they’re dry, mealy, and fluffy when cooked, so these are the guys you’ll want to bake, mash, or fry. Look for Russet, Idaho, or Baking potatoes in your store.

Waxy potatoes are higher in sugar and lower in starch. They hold their shape better than starchies, so you’ll want to use them on the grill, in soups, in salads, and when boiling (as in this recipe). They’ll usually be sold as Red or Yellow potatoes. (Yukon Golds fall in the middle of the spectrum; new potatoes are young versions of any of these, but typically Red ones.)

When boiling potatoes for most any preparation, start them in cold water; don’t wait for the boil to throw them in. They’ll cook more evenly, and faster. Cover the potatoes by 1 inch of water; add a tablespoon of salt; bring to a boil on high, cover and turn down to medium-low; simmer, stirring lightly a few times, for 10-20 minutes.

To test the doneness of your potatoes, you could just poke them, but given a sharp enough knife, this may be misleading (an uncooked potato could give in to easily to a Global blade.) Instead, attempt to lift them out of the water once you’ve poked: they shouldn’t hang on to the knife at all if they’re plate-ready. When they pass this test, drain them carefully and put them back in the (now dry) pot. Then do this wacky thing: Place a clean dish towel over the pot and cover it for a few minutes. What you’re doing here is helping to dry the potatoes a little more without shaking or otherwise upsetting them; that might break them up. The towel will absorb steam and you’ll have moist but not water-logged spuds (It took me this long to use the word spud?)

Next, peel the potatoes (if you want - I do), cut them in half or in quarters, and pour on the olive oil. Salt with fleur de sel. Enjoy as a snack, or as a side to a fish dinner. Salt and fat, helping a simple vegetable taste its best. That’s easy and tasty, and you can make it.