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Plus, I cook through snap pea recipes in my cookbooks

Are these snap peas perfectly smooth and unmarred? No, they are not. But I’m here to tell you that really good snap peas — the kind from local farms, crisp and sweet, with big juicy shells and no woodiness — have flaws.

I thought a lot about what a first post for the CookShelf newsletter should be. Not in a good way — in a spinning, overthinking way. Should I tell my cooking story, or write an essay about why cooking from cookbooks is worth your time?

In the end, I figured it was better to just jump right in. Bits and pieces of my story and my opinions about cookbooks will be scattered throughout this newsletter in time, and that’s enough of that. You can read a bit more about the plans for this newsletter on our About page. The tl;dr is: sometimes (like this time!) I’ll write about ingredients I love and recipes that feature them, and sometimes we’ll have guest cookbook authors or Substack recipe creators come and tell us about the cookbooks they love. I’m excited to highlight new and trending cookbooks, but also the older classics or hidden gems that influenced many of us along the way.

(One last disclaimer before I jump in: All the same reasons that made me start this newsletter — a love of cookbooks and a desire to use them more — also made me decide to build an app for searching your cookbooks. So while this newsletter is *not* intended to just be an ad for the CookShelf app, if you are interested you can learn more and sign up to try the beta app here.)

That said… let’s talk about snap peas!!

Snap peas are one of those things, like strawberries and tomatoes, where quality and freshness really do matter. Not to say I don’t sometimes also love a snap pea from Safeway in November — but we have to acknowledge it’s a totally different (inferior) thing. A great snap pea is sweet, crisp, and has thick juicy walls (do we call them walls? shells? I don’t know, but I think you know what I mean) and tender peas inside. It’s a thing of beauty all by itself.

It’s also pretty great in a million other (not-all-by-itself) preparations. So let’s dive into the snap pea series: what I’ve been cooking since snap peas first hit the farmer’s market in May. And don’t worry, they’re at their peak all through July in many places, including here in Seattle.

Miso-maple sugar snap pea, turnip and strawberry salad

from Tenderheart by Hetty McKinnon

Hetty McKinnon is a bit of a hero for me. Every one of her recipes is something I’d be delighted to eat at a restaurant, while somehow also being approachable to make at home, often on a weeknight. This salad is one of those unexpected yet unpretentious combinations — though maybe it shouldn’t be unexpected, given how it brings together these perfect elements of June: snap peas, salad turnips, strawberries, mint. I’m not a big quinoa person — too often it feels to me like diet food or something — but this dish makes me think maybe I’m missing out. It’s hearty, it’s fresh, it’s wholesome, and that miso-maple dressing makes you keep wanting to take another bite. I loved it with a little crumbled feta as well, which turns it from not-quite-enough-for-dinner (for me) to a perfect dinner.

Sugar snap peas with pickled cherries and peanuts

from Six Seasons by Joshua McFaddon

Six Seasons is a book that promises and delivers on hyper-seasonality, and snap peas and cherries are, in fact, both perfect at the same time. Joshua McFadden lists this as “spring,” though at least in the Pacific Northwest I find that both of these don’t even really start until June, and are excellent through most of July, so it’s a bit of a crossover season. I had never thought to put cherries and snap peas together — and certainly would not have thought to add peanuts and basil. (I’m not sure why, but I seem to only put peanuts in Southeast Asian food. This seems like a mistake.) For our mildly-allergic-to-peanuts friend, we also had a bowl with Marcona almonds, and I can confirm it was at least as good. It goes perfectly with lamb or pork chops on the grill.

Lemon farfalle with spring pea ragu

from Flour + Water by Thomas McNaughton

Let me be clear: this is not a weeknight recipe. I know this definitively because I made it on a weeknight, and my children did not go to bed at their assigned bedtime or even very close. But we all had a great time and a great meal. And that is the type of night this is for: when you’re in the mood to take on a project, and ideally have a few pairs of hands for rolling and folding pasta, prepping snap peas, etc.

Because this recipe is definitely a project. You shell the English peas, take the strings out of the snap peas, blanch some spinach and peas, make a pea and parmigiano broth, use some of that broth and blanched veggies to make a pea puree. Oh yeah, and you also make the pasta dough with some very finely chopped parsley and lemon zest, roll it out, cut into little squares, and fold each into butterflies (or bowties, if you prefer). It’s a lot. But if you’re in the mood, it’s also really fun, and the payoff is there: it’s the brightest, springiest (or early summeriest, most elegant pasta. It’s a real celebration of season.

Sugar snap pea and new potato salad with crumbled egg and sardines

from Six Seasons by Joshua McFadden

This is a second dish from Six Seasons, yes, but he does have a whole section on Snap Peas so I couldn’t really help it. This one did not photograph so well (food styling/photography are skills, where, shall we say, I’m early in my learning journey), but wow was it GOOD. I love sardines, and I’m not sure why I feel compelled to say this, but I also loved sardines before tinned fish was Cool Girl cool. The way the sardines mash up with the egg and potato and bright spots of mint and snap peas was so satisfying — another meal that feels light and fresh, but also is plenty hearty to be in a meal in itself.

Sugar snap pea-infused Plymouth gin

from Death & Co by Nick Fauchald, Alex Day, and David Kaplan

I love a brightly vegetal flavor in a gin drink, and so when I saw that Death & Co. had a recipe for snap pea gin I had to give it a shot. It’s Plymouth gin mixed with chopped snap peas (I actually used a stick blender for a couple pulses to “chop” them, and was happy with the outcome) for a few hours, and strained.

Death & Co. has one recipe featuring this gin, called Tenement Yard, but it has orgeat, which I was out of. So the first drink I tried with this was a concoction with plenty of lemon juice, some BraVo Douglas Fir Liqueur, and some Dolin Blanc vermouth. It was pretty delicious. Later that week I went for a classic martini with a twist, but subbing in this gin, which gave it a subtly sweet “green” flavor. I’m into it, but I think next time I’d like the snap peas stay in the gin longer for an even more pronounced flavor.

Le Grand Aïoli (a.k.a. Aïoli, petit to monstre)

from Le Sud by Rebekah Peppler

I recently went to Southern France — Le Sud itself! At least half the trip was inspired by Rebekah Peppler’s A+ travel recs Substack, Shortlisted. One of the most revelatory dishes on that trip was something like this one, served right on the rocky shoreline looking over the Mediterranean (one of Rebekah’s recs, Tuba Club). Just a veggie platter. But the veggies! They were so perfect! And, crucially, many/most of them were blanched and chilled. Why do we insist that a veggie platter must be raw?? I never thought about this deeply before and now I think about it too much.

Anyway, the above is not something you really need a recipe for: Mix the raw (radicchio, radish), and the lightly blanched vegetables to just crisp-tender (snap peas, of course, and green peans and asparagus), and pair with a big bowl of aioli (mine has chive blossoms on the top, because chives were blooming so why not).

The inspiration here was Rebekah Peppler twice over — first the restaurant she recommended in her newsletter, and then her gorgeous book Le Sud. If you want to travel to Southern France without the actually going anywhere, just leaf through this book, make a big bowl of garlicky aioli, blanch some veggies, and enjoy with a glass of rosé.

Bonus: Orecchiette with bacon, snap peas, and ricotta

from Cook This Book by Molly Baz

I was going to be all done with the snap pea recipes, but I just happened to have exactly all the ingredients for this one: fresh orecchiette (impulse purchased at my local co-op which I love), the precise right amount of snap peas and bacon, and some high-quality ricotta. It’s cheesy, peppery, rich with bacon, and the snap peas offer a nice crunch and freshness. The only thing I’d do differently myself is probably double the snap peas — a matter of taste for sure, but as established, I do love snap peas.