Sweet Green Peas with Feta, Lemon, & Dill

Maybe it’s the warmer weather or maybe I just need a vacation, but I’ve been thinking a lot about Greece recently and remembering the beautiful beaches and delicious foods we experienced on our honeymoon there a year and a half ago. Paging through the wonderful cookbook Kokkari: Contemporary Greek Flavors has been a great way to relive some of the flavor memories—the briny feta, acidic Assyrtiko wines, grassy olive oil, crisp vegetable salads, fresh seafood, gamey braised meats, bitter wild greens, bracingly strong anise-flavored ouzo. . . . (If you want to read more about our trip and what we ate, I posted about it here: Athens, Crete, Santorini, and Milos.) This fresh green pea salad tastes just like something we could have ordered at a dockside restaurant, along with grilled octopus, tomato fritters, and perhaps a half carafe of lunch wine.

Though we didn’t do any traveling this past weekend, we did have some delicious food experiences! We had a cheese picnic in a small Manhattan park, where we enjoyed Shropshire Blue, an aged gouda, a super strong truffle cheese, and our favorite Delice de Bourgogne, along with some fantastic Ibérico sausage.

On Sunday we walked to the Sunset Park neighborhood in Brooklyn for tacos at Tacos El Branco. I had been to the food truck location several times (incredible!) but this was my first time trying out the restaurant. The tacos did not disappoint! My favorite was the tripe taco, which is nothing like whatever bad tripe experience you may have had in the past. The tripe is tender and chewy and crispy all at the same time—amazing.

I hope you all have a wonderful week, and I’ll be back next Monday with another recipe for you!

Sweet Green Peas with Feta, Lemon, & Dill

adapted from Kokkari: Contemporary Greek Flavors

• 2 cups shelled peas (from about 2 lbs peas in pods)
• 4 oz crumbled feta (about 1 cup)
• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 2 Tbsp finely chopped scallion (white and green parts), plus more for garnish
• 2 Tbsp chopped dill, plus more for garnish
• 1/2 lemon
• freshly ground black pepper

1. Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Add the peas and cook for 30 seconds, then drain and spread on a baking sheet to cool.
2. In a large bowl, mix the feta with the olive oil until it forms a rough paste. When the peas have cooled to room temperature, add the peas, the scallions, and the dill to the feta mixture and stir to combine. Transfer to a serving dish and squeeze lemon juice over the top, add some black pepper, and garnish with additional scallion and dill.