Home › Vegetables › Carrots and Peas with Green Mint
Carrots and Peas with Green Mint
1 very small bunch fresh mint 2 cups cooked cubed carrots 1 cup cooked peas Salt and pepper Butter Sugar Boil together carrots, peas and mint leaves for five minutes. Drain, add salt and pepper, a generous amount of butter, and sprinkle with sugar. Set in the oven until the sugar melts. Serve with a garnish of fresh mint leaves.
A simple side that reheats already-cooked vegetables with mint, butter and a little sugar. The only real decision is how much mint and how much sugar.
- Mint quantity"One very small bunch" is vague; about 8 to 10 leaves for this volume of vegetables gives clear mint flavor without turning the dish medicinal. Strip the leaves from the stems and discard the stems, which are woody and bitter.
- Starting from rawIf you are not working from leftovers, 1 lb carrots cut in 1/2-inch cubes gives roughly 2 cups cooked; about 5 oz frozen peas (half a standard 10 oz package) gives about 1 cup. Boil the carrots until barely tender before the five-minute step, or they will still be firm at the end.
- The five-minute boilSince both vegetables are already cooked, the boil is mainly there to infuse the mint. Two or three minutes will do; already-cooked peas can dull in color and soften further with longer boiling.
- Oven stepThe recipe gives no temperature, only 'set in the oven until the sugar melts.' A moderate oven of around 350F for five to eight minutes should be enough. The point is to melt the sugar and butter into a light glaze, not to brown anything, so use a shallow dish and pull it out as soon as the surface looks glossy.
- Sugar"Sprinkle" means roughly 1 to 2 teaspoons total. Carrots and peas are already sweet; more than that reads as candy.
- ButterRead 'a generous amount' as 2 to 3 tablespoons for three cups of vegetables. Cut it back if you like, but the butter is what carries the mint.
- YieldServes four as a side dish.