Ah! I’ve made it to 100 posts and I’ve decided to put forward ikura and peas to commemorate the milestone. Besides, it’s almost spring.

Ingredients

• ikura (salmon roe)
• soy sauce
• mirin
• sake
• fresh fava beans
• fresh spring peas
• fresh snow peas
• wine salt

Preparation

Prepare marinade for salmon roe by combining three parts soy sauce, two parts mirin and one part sake. The flavor profile for this marinade is Japanese so use either a Japanese or Taiwanese soy sauce. Add the ikura to the marinade.

Shell the peas and the fava beans. De-string, cap and tail the snow peas. Bring a pot of salted water to a strong boil. Add the peas to the water and let cook no more than 15 seconds; remove with a spider and immediately place peas into ice water to halt cooking. Add the snow peas to the water and let cook up to two minutes, depending on the age of the peas (very young snow peas will require under one minute); remove with a spider and immediately place into ice water. Add the fava beans and let cook no more than 90 seconds; remove with a spider and immediately place into ice water.

Drain peas and beans, set aside spring peas. Slice snow peas into julienne. Peel fava beans, taking care not to split them in half.

Service

Carefully assemble julienned snow peas onto service plate. Place spring peas and fava beans onto plate alongside and atop snow peas. Top with marinated ikura, using a bit of the marinade to dress the vegetables. Sprinkle pinch of wine salt and serve immediately.

Notes

When I first made this dish, I was in experiment mode and wasn’t too thrilled that a salad was the best thing I could come up with when faced with really fresh spring vegetables.

After some reflection, this is actually one dish I am really happy with – it’s tasty, vibrant and visually appealing. One needs really good ingredients and really good soy sauce, mirin and sake to get it to be tasty and vibrant so no skimping. Since it’s so reliant on fava beans and peas, it’s highly seasonal and worth a revisit especially as spring is less than two calendar weeks away.

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