In her Little House books Laura Ingalls Wilder made a big deal out of the changing of the seasons. Fall was an obvious one with all the emphasis on the harvest, etc., but springtime was also a really big deal for her.
In one of the books — I don’t specifically remember which one — she goes into a four- or five-page reverie about her mother making the first salad of the year. She describes the lettuce that she grew, and how her ma would make a dressing out of bacon drippings and vinegar.
“Oh, Ma!” the barefoot kids would cry, “Salad!”
“Hooray! Salad!”
“By gum, Caroline,” her Pa would say, “You beat everyone else all hollow for making salad!”
And Ma would blush, and admit that while it wasn’t perfect, it was, in fact, a pretty good salad.”
And I, as a child of the ’70s, would stop reading briefly, and shout at the book.
“Seriously, people! It’s a salad! Get over it!”
What I didn’t or couldn’t realize at the time was that this frontier family had just come off a winter of living on potatoes, salt pork and hardtack, and now even the potatoes were gone. They all had early-stage rickets and scurvy. Fresh, leafy greens must have hit their systems like a vitamin A speedball.
Now, while we haven’t spent the winter locked up in a one-room shanty on the prairie, we are coming off a long takeout and frozen dinner jag. Many of us have spent the past week or two standing in our gardens, hands on hips, staring down at the seedlings and going, “WELL?!”
The big stuff — the cucumbers, tomatoes, and corn — is still a long way off, but we are starting to get a few tiny things, vegetable flirtations, if you will, from our gardens.
Springtime Cocktail #1
Peas and mint are a classic combination. My question was a matter of ratios — how much mint to how many peas?
I looked through many, many recipes and found very little agreement. But Martha Stewart advised 10 ounces of peas to 1/3 cup of mint leaves, and if there is anyone I would put blind trust in on this matter, it would be Martha.
The great thing about this recipe is that aside from washing the peas and mint, you don’t have to pluck, chop or process them in any fussy way.
Preparing the gin:
- 1/3 cup (8 grams) fresh mint — Don’t worry about plucking the leaves. The stems will work well here, too.
- 10 ounces fresh sugar snap peas or snow peas in their pods
- 10 ounces (285 grams) medium-quality gin — I used Gordon’s
Measure all three ingredients into a blender — a kitchen scale is excellent for this.
Blend thoroughly for a minute or so.
Leave the mixture to steep for an hour.
Strain with a fine-meshed kitchen strainer.
Your yield will be about a cup (8 ounces) of Bright Green Gin — enough for four cocktails.
The cocktail itself:
- 2 ounces Bright Green Gin
- 1 ounce fresh squeezed lemon juice
- ¾ ounce amaretto
Combine all ingredients with ice in a cocktail shaker.
Shake.
Strain into a chilled coupe glass.
This is what I call a classic Utility Cocktail recipe — two parts alcohol, one part citrus juice, ¾ part syrup or liqueur.
Amaretto has a reputation of being a bully and taking over any drink it’s a part of. When used judiciously, it is an excellent team player. Peas go extremely well with mint – that’s a given. They also go with lemon and with almonds. All these ingredients play extremely well together.
The first thing you notice, of course, is the color, a bright vibrant green that even the amaretto won’t dull. The pea flavor is distinct but not overly assertive. The acid of the lemon juice brightens everything up.
It is startlingly delicious.
And holds off scurvy. There’s no sense in taking chances.
(One observation: The Bright Green Gin has a short shelf life. It will start losing its vibrant color and flavor within a couple of hours, so it is best to drink it right away. This is a perfect before-dinner cocktail to share with friends, or for two of you to have two apiece.)
Featured photo. Springtime Cocktail. Photo by John Fladd.
