I have cooked long enough in my life to know exactly what I like. I love chicken breast, fixed 8,732 different ways. I love a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. I’ve never met a pasta dish I didn’t like, and if there is cheese involved, it’s a sure bet that it will make my top 10 list. My favorites list is long and ever changing, and my list of non-preferred foods is astonishingly short (in sum: liver and onions, overcooked vegetables of any kind and caraway seeds in rye bread). I am seldom lukewarm about a food: I generally either love it (nearly all foods) or hate it (see the above list).

Except . . . except for one ingredient that I have a very weird relationship with: mint. For the most part, if mint is blended into something sweet like ice cream or chocolate truffles, I can’t get enough of it. In savory foods, though, I usually can’t get past the impression that someone spilled an errant bit of toothpaste on my leg of lamb or quinoa salad. I can’t think of any other food in this culinary no man’s land, but it has held true for nearly all of my life, until now.

The ingredient list for this eye-catching vegetable and cheese creation is short and simple, so when I saw mint in the recipe, my heart sank just a bit. Leaving out even a single ingredient in a recipe this pared down would likely mean a dish that simply wouldn’t work. I scrolled past it on one of my social media channels, and then scrolled back, and then scrolled back again. The vibrant colors and textures are truly the embodiment of spring, with bright green and soft red mingling on the plate. It was just so inviting looking that I finally bookmarked it and let it simmer in the back of my mind for several weeks.

Finally, my curiosity got the better of me and I threw this beauty together. A simple puree of fresh peas and mint is topped with a salad of sugar snap peas and radishes, along with burrata cheese. The bright flavors of the puree and the salad marry perfectly with the richness of the cheese to create a dish that is, in a word, divine. Somehow, the mint seems perfectly at home with all those other elements, helping to brighten them up, rather than fighting with them. At no point while consuming this salad did I think about ice cream, candy, or even the toothpaste in the bathroom drawer. In fact, it was so good that I didn’t think about much at all, except taking another bite.

I whipped this dish up in less than ten minutes and then fed it to my curious family who took tentative bites at first, then ate with gusto, and finally bargained over who got the last serving. It’s that good. Fresh peas are pretty easy to come by this time of year, but frozen ones (thawed a bit) will work just as well if that is easier. I gave my peas a two-minute whirl in the microwave just to brighten them up and remove any raw flavor. I hesitated to buy sugar snap peas in addition to regular peas, but the repetition here is worth it, as the textural contrast is part of the fun of this salad. I served this as a side with grilled fish, but with a crusty piece of bread to mop the plate, this would be a wonderful light lunch all on its own.

When it comes to cooking, I’m something of an old dog, but this new trick has made a believer out of me. I have a strong sense of what I like and what I don’t; but what I like most of all is finding new foods to love.

Article and photo by Lisa Crockett