Scallion

Your family will love this fresh flavored purée and won’t guess that it was made from what some consider scraps-the stubs from asparagus stalks and the thick green tops of leeks. And if you hate to throw away tasty, usable food, as I do, you will feel virtuous. The stubs of fresh, tender, skinny asparagus are best for this-don’t even bother if the stubs are dry, white, and woody. Likewise, use only fresh, flexible leek greens here-it’s OK if the leaves are firm and thick but not if they’re wilted, old, or hard as leather.

Here’s a fitting sauce for springtime, full of seasonal treasures: asparagus, sweet peas, scallions, leeks, and fresh mint. And the color? Springtime green! Of course, since all of the ingredients are available year round, you can enjoy this anytime. But it is truly splendid when made with produce in season. Fresh asparagus-locally grown if you can get it-is the foundation of this sauce, both its sweet flavor and the pleasing texture of the finely sliced vegetable. Use skinny asparagus spears for uniform appearance and easy slicing (and don’t throw away the stubs; see recipe that follows). If available, fresh sweet peas are wonderful in the sauce. If not, frozen peas are always acceptable.

Small shrimp make a lovely addition to skillet sauces, because they cook so quickly, barely 2 minutes in the skillet. The trick is to make sure that you don’t overcook the shrimp. If you can, start your pasta before the sauce, so they finish at the same time. But if your pasta isn’t ready when the shrimp and sauce are, take the skillet off the heat.

Asparagus frittata and pasta . . . If you think you have seen a recipe of mine that sounds like this one, you are right. In an earlier book I gave a recipe for an “Asparagus Frittata with Capellini.” And here’s “Spaghetti with Asparagus Frittata.” But they are not at all the same, even though the ingredients are nearly identical. In the earlier recipe, a bit of leftover cooked pasta is stirred into a frittata as it cooks and bakes into a tender cake, which is then served in wedges. Here you have a quick skillet pasta. In fact, it is a “two-skillet” pasta. In the big skillet you make a very simple sauce with oil, scallions, and pasta water. In another skillet, you scramble up a soft frittata with sautéed asparagus. You also cook a pot of spaghetti. When everything is tossed together—in the big skillet—the textures, tastes, and colors blend beautifully. Follow the recipe instructions for coordinating the cooking the first time you make this. Once you see and sense how everything goes together, you’ll have added a truly wonderful dish to your repertoire of family recipes. This is a good dish to make with fresh homemade egg pastas, such as fettuccine, garganelli, pappardelle, capellini, spaghettini. Instead of asparagus, you could use another vegetable in your frittata, such as zucchini, broccoli, or just onions; or ham, prosciutto, or bacon. Or have a plain frittata.

Try this with poached garlic purée too.

This soup is nice without the addition of garlic purée, marvelous with it. If you like, add short shreds of Savoy cabbage in place of some of the cauliflower, or make Savoy-cabbage soup with poached garlic purée instead.

It is so simple to transform a hard, homely celery root into a lovely salad with delicate taste and texture. Just drop the big root—a softball-sized unpeeled round—into a big pot of water, and let it cook for an hour or more. This technique retains and mellows the root’s wonderful flavor, and makes it easy to peel and cut it up too. Dress this simply, or take the salad in a different direction (see variations).

This is a great spring salad with two long, lovely green vegetables that have a real affinity for each other (try the Asparagus, Green Pea, and Scallion Sauce for pasta in chapter 3). It is delicious as an antipasto or a first course, or as a side dish to grilled meat and fish. You can serve this salad chilled, but I like it at room temperature. If you haven’t poached scallions before, be sure to note how nicely it brings out the flavors in a mellow way. And here’s a thrifty cooking tip: scallion trimmings are some of the most useful scraps in the kitchen. A handful of leaves and the root ends can make an instant broth, as a substitute for stock—see my recipe for Simple Vegetable Broth, page 288.

My friend Roxy makes this zingy coleslaw, which I love for its sweet and tangy flavors. It’s as close as I come to making that classic, creamy Southern slaw that goes with everything from pulled pork or fried fish to burgers and fries. It also makes a great topping for grilled hot dogs or chicken sausages served in grilled pita bread.

This recipe makes much more than you’ll need for one meal, but you won’t be sorry you have extra—it spruces up everything from toasted bread and steamed vegetables to grilled fish or chicken.

Think of these as open-faced Mexican sandwiches, topped with grilled summer vegetables, tangy feta cheese, and fresh tomato salsa.

Look for hoisin sauce and rice vinegar in the Asian foods section of your supermarket. Although ingredients vary, hoisin is generally made with soybeans, chiles, and spices. It’s used as a seasoning at the table and in cooking.

Lentils get a bad reputation, largely because they can look like lumpy mud, even though they taste really good. This lentil and potato salad is delicious, and because we used yellow lentils, it actually looks pretty, too. This is great to take to a potluck to share with friends.