A spring recipe (that's good even if local spring ingredients aren’t yet ready)
Potato and pea salad with smoked salmon and lemony mayo
When the calendar flips to April, restaurants in the Northeast start adding asparagus, peas, and other fleeting spring vegetables to their menus without fail.
Their little secret? Most of those veggies come from California in the earliest part of the season.
Gardeners and farmers' market shoppers know these ingredients aren't ready for harvest locally. Our spring vegetable season tends to blur into summer when the onslaught of asparagus and snap peas arrives with the first zucchini.
I'm not a locavore purist, but local asparagus and strawberries are worth waiting for. When they come from farther afield, they just don’t taste as good. The time lag between the official start of spring and the availability of the season’s best ingredients makes April in the Northeast challenging for cooks. We have a taste for spring things, and yet, we must wait.
Thank goodness for frozen peas.
So, funny story: I was thumbing through Giulia Scarpaleggia's new book Cucina Povera, about the Italian art of turning humble ingredients and scraps into satisfying meals.
I asked Giulia if I could share her recipe for risi e bisi, a comforting combination of rice and green peas. I thought it would be a nice follow-on to last week's legume and rice recipe.
Someone is already sharing it this weekend, she told me. Well, shoot.
And then I realized that this "someone" is Susan Spungen, cookbook author, food stylist extraordinaire, and creator of Susanality on Substack. So if you want that recipe, head over to Susan's newsletter.
(Giulia has a Substack newsletter as well called Letters from Tuscany.)
Lucky for me, I had another recipe with peas up my sleeve.
This one is inspired by a simple salad I tried at a newer French cafe in town.
There, they toss together potatoes, peas, and green beans, all very lightly dressed in a mayo-based sauce and topped with poached salmon. The addition of finely chopped giardiniera (the Italian-style pickled vegetables) made it so fun to eat. You'd be forking a bite of boiled vegetables and then pop! A pickle!
For this version, I swap radishes for the green beans and cornichons for the giardiniera (plus a couple of the pickled onions from the jar). Instead of poached salmon, I use hot-smoked salmon, but any smoked fish would be nice. (I also offer instructions for baking salmon below, if you prefer.)
I made the dressing a little zippier than their version. A little splash of cornichon brine in addition to the lemon here is also good!
Potato and Pea Salad with Smoked Salmon and Lemony Mayo
Time: 30 mins
Serves 4
1 ½ pounds small potatoes
Salt
5 radishes, with tops
1 cup frozen peas
10 cornichons, plus pickled onions from the jar
¼ cup mayonnaise
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
8 ounces hot-smoked salmon
Prep and cook the potatoes, peas, and radish tops.
Scrub the potatoes and cut them crosswise into ¼-inch-thick rounds. Transfer them to a medium saucepan, cover with water, add 1 teaspoon salt, and bring to a boil over high heat.
After the water boils, reduce to a simmer.
As the water is coming to a boil, separate the tops from the radishes and rinse them well, then finely chop the leaves.
Cook the potatoes until just tender, about 8 minutes after the water starts simmering.
Add the peas to the water and cook until they start to turn bright green, about 1 minute. Add the radish tops and cook until bright green, about 30 seconds.
Drain the vegetables, and rinse them under cold water until they’re warm.
While the vegetables cook, prep the rest of the salad
Thinly slice the radish roots.
Thinly slice the cornichons and finely chop the pickled onion.
In a small bowl, whisk together the mayo and fresh lemon juice.
Put it all together!
Transfer the warm vegetables to a large bowl. Add half the mayo and gently toss. Taste and season generously with salt and pepper, then let stand for 5 minutes if you have the time. (This will allow the dressing and seasoning to absorb and make the potatoes more flavorful-tasting.)
Gently stir in the radishes, cornichons, and pickled onions, then transfer to bowls.
Divide the smoked salmon among the bowls, breaking up the pieces into large flakes. Drizzle with more of the mayo or serve it at the table.
***If you’d like to make roasted salmon instead***
Preheat the oven to 425°. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.
Arrange 1 pound salmon skin side down on the baking sheet. Pat the fish dry, and brush or rub the top flesh with 1 tablespoon olive oil. Sprinkle with salt.
Roast the salmon for 7 to 9 minutes (or longer if you have a very thick fillet), until a butter knife inserted into the center of the thickest part is just warm, 7 to 9 minutes.
The short version
Slice the potatoes ¼ inch thick and cook them in salted boiling water until just tender. A minute or so before they’re done, add the peas and cook until bright green, then add the finely chopped tops from the radishes. Drain, and run cold water over them to cool them down to warm.
Meanwhile, thinly slice the radishes and cornichons and chop the pickled onions. Whisk together the mayo and lemon juice.
Fold the warm vegetables with half the mayo and season with salt. Add the radishes and pickles and stir again. Serve in bowls, topped with smoked salmon and passing more mayo at the table.
Swaps
Instead of radishes, try sliced celery and celery leaves. (It will be a different flavor, of course, but the addition will be nice!)
Instead of lemon juice, use white wine vinegar or some brine from the cornichon jar!
Instead of cornichons, use ¼ cup of your favorite pickle relish or other finely chopped pickle.
Instead of mayo, use 3 tablespoons olive oil.
Instead of hot-smoked salmon, top with other smoked fish, such as trout or mackerel. Cold-smoked salmon will also be good! Or skip the fish all together and top with some hard-cooked eggs or some torn slivers of ham.
Bonus points
Add sliced hard-cooked eggs to the top.
Add a sprinkle of herbs you might have on-hand. Chives, tarragon, dill, parsley, or chervil would be especially nice.
If asparagus is in season where you are, add some! Just cut it into 2-inch lengths and add to the potatoes about 3 minutes before the potatoes are done cooking.
If you want more greens, fold in some watercress or sprinkle with microgreens.
Did you make this recipe?
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Delish! Any recos for smoked salmon brands/sourcing?