Recipe: Market Green Pea Hummus
The English peas you're seeing in markets right now make the perfect seasoned dip or spread.
It’s nearly impossible to behold the displays of fresh green peas in our local farmer’s markets and not let the creative wheels start turning re: how to eat more peas!
I love them in all their glorious incarnations: pea leaves, pea shoots, snow peas and the uber-crisp snap peas (raw!), yet the relatively starchy English pea is my choice for any kind of deeply seasoned dip or spread. And if you can get your hands on a really fresh, artisan tahini you are more than half way to a fun, easy and novel take on regular hummus. It’s great with crudité or your favorite chips but my recent enthusiasm is toasted seaweed crisps.
Market Green Pea Hummus
Yields approximately 1 ½ cups
1 cup freshly shelled green peas
¼ cup tahini
1 large clove garlic, peeled
2 Tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
½ teaspoon fine sea salt or more to taste
1 teaspoon ground cumin seed (lightly dry toast the cumin seeds before grinding)
½ teaspoon ground coriander seed
1 Tablespoon extra virgin olive oil for drizzling
Bring a small saucepan of salted water to a vigorous boil. Have a bowl of ice cubes and cold water standing by. Add the peas to the boiling water and cook 1 minute. Remove the peas with a conical strainer and immediately plunge into the ice bath. Once the peas are completely cold, drain them and add to a blender.
Add the tahini, garlic, lemon juice, salt, cumin and coriander to the peas in the blender and puree until smooth.
Spoon the hummus out on a plate and drizzle with the olive oil.
Taste and add more salt, lemon juice or spices as desired.
