ShareThisFor those who love farmers markets, bargains from the produce aisle and seasonal eating, there's a great new book to guide you through the year's bounty. "Fine Cooking in Season: Your Guide to Choosing and Preparing the Season's Best" by editors of and contributors to Fine Cooking (The Taunton Press, $22.95) offers a season-by-season guide to vegetables and fruits with helpful information, recipes and ideas.
The book is organized into sections for spring, early summer, late summer, fall and winter, and then by ingredient, with information on selecting, preparing, cooking and preserving, as well as recipes for each vegetable or fruit. There are new ideas for staple ingredients such as strawberries, as well as helpful primers for ingredients some people may be less familiar with, including fiddleheads (young fern fronds), nopales (leaves of the prickly pear cactus) and passionfruit.
One of my favorite parts of Fine Cooking magazine is that along with detailed recipes there are also suggestions packing in even more ideas for how to use seasonal ingredients. The editors do the same thing here, finishing each section with a handful of clever but simple dishes.
The book starts a little slow, then picks up steam. The spring section has lovely recipes for ramps and fiddleheads, garlic and peas, but it's hard not to want to skip ahead to summer recipes for nopales with scrambled eggs and cilantro or fresh corn pancakes with maple syrup.
Those months will come soon enough, and no matter the season, this book has lots of recipes, tips and inspiration to offer.
LIGHTLY SPICED SUGAR SNAP PEAS WITH MINT AND LIME
(Tested by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
Sugar snap peas are delicious raw; so delicious, in fact, that I rarely take the trouble to cook them. In this case, I'm glad I did. Quick cooking ensured that the pods retained their crispness and sweetness, while the addition of curry, mint and lime juice added a wonderfully complex flavor to the finished dish.
-- China Millman
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/4 teaspoon Thai red curry paste
3/4 pound sugar snap peas, trimmed
2 tablespoons thinly sliced fresh mint
2 teaspoons fresh lime juice
Kosher salt
Heat 1 tablespoon of the butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. As soon as the butter melts, add the curry paste and mash it around with the back of a fork until it's mostly broken up and distributed through the butter.
Add the peas and toss with tongs to coat in the butter. Add 1/3 cup water, cover with the lid slightly ajar, raise the heat to medium high and steam until the peas are almost tender, about 5 minutes.
Remove the lid and let any remaining liquid boil off. Stir in the remaining 1 tablespoon butter, the mint and the lime juice. Season to taste with salt and serve.
Serves 2 to 3.
-- Adapted from "Fine Cooking in Season: Your Guide to Choosing and Preparing the Season's Best" (The Taunton Press, $22.95)
GLAZED RADISHES
(Tested by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
I love how cooking softens and gentles radishes, which can sometimes be a little too assertive to eat in large quantities. Here, the addition of butter, sugar and lemon juice all help bring out the radishes' hidden sweetness.
-- China Millman
1 pound radishes, scrubbed and trimmed
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more to taste
1/2 lemon
Cut any large radishes in half so they're all about the same size. Arrange in a saute pan just large enough to hold the radishes in a single layer. Add the butter, sugar and salt. Add enough water to come halfway up the sides of the radishes. Cover the radishes with a pot lid askew, bring the water to a high simmer, then lower the heat and simmer gently.
Start testing after 5 minutes, but it may take up to 10 or 15 minutes; a knife should penetrate easily with just some slight resistance. Add more water if the pan is drying out; if the radishes are tender but there's a lot of liquid left in the pan, turn up the heat and remove the cover to boil away the liquid. When the radishes are done and the water has cooked away, squeeze a little lemon juice into the pan and swirl to coat the radishes. Taste and adjust the salt.
Serves 3 to 4.
-- Adapted from "Fine Cooking in Season: Your Guide to Choosing and Preparing the Season's Best" (The Taunton Press, $22.95)
(Contact China Millman at cmillman(at)post-gazette.com. Follow her at http://twitter.com/chinamillman.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
Must credit Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
