Keep It Simple, Smarty: Sesame Sugar Snap Peas

Read recipe headlines or captions and you might think cooking has turned into a version of Name That Tune.  Take any dish, let’s say a salad in this case.  Can’t you just see it, opponents stand across from each other on a cardboard cut out game show set, sizing each other up, looking for tells. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly practically plays in the background.

“Jim, I can make that salad in 7 ingredients,” says Contestant #1.

“I can make it in 5,” replies Contestant #2.

#1 rocks from left foot to right to left again.  “Uhhh, Jim, I can make it in 3.”

Sensing uncertainty, #2 points, “Make that salad.”

Alright, let’s do it. Easy peasy Sesame Sugar Snap Peas.

Our penchant for complicating things and adding too many ingredients and flavors is not unlike that urge to mix all your watercolors together, only to come up with a mess that’s just black.

So, in the spirit of keeping it simple, let’s just get to it.

As much as I long for summer, the extended spring in the Pacific Northwest is just bringing the first sugar snap peas to market.  And they’ve been gorgeous the last two weeks, making it absolutely necessary to do as little as possible to them.  Stripping things down to the simplest elements makes this barely a recipe.

While you don’t have to, I blanch the sugar snaps for just a minute. It keeps them bright green and still crunchy, but without that green, grassy, vegetal flavor.  Toss them in a little sesame oil, season with kosher salt and garnish with black sesame seeds.

 The other half of this meal – the daeji bulgogi — was equally simple: marinate thinly sliced pork loin in a mixture of gochujang, soy sauce, garlic, ginger and green onion, and a few hours later, come back and grill it up. While you’ve got the grill going, why not throw on some red bell pepper chunks and zucchini? Done and done.

See? Simple.

 

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