An Experience with Green Garlic

     If I had to describe green garlic is something like a cross between a scallion, a leek, and garlic.  I found the aroma and flavor to be like that of garlic but much lighter.  Last night, a friend and I decided to make a recipe featuring green garlic that I had found on Chow.com called Angel Hair Pasta with Green Garlic Cream Sauce. I had some mixed feelings about both the recipe and the prepared dish.
    The appearance of the prepared dish was very nice if a little simple.  The contrast of deep green from the asparagus and peas and creamy white from the cream and pasta was lovely.  I topped it with some freshly ground black pepper for further effect.
     The taste left a bit to be desired in my opinion.  I liked that the dish was light, and I thought that the crispy sweetness of the sugar snap peas was wonderful; however, I thought that the main ingredient of interest, the green garlic, did not really stand out.  If I was to make a suggestion, I would recommend that more green garlic be added in order to help it take more of a lead role in flavoring the dish.  I would also recommend that this dish be paired with a light bodied wine that has more herbaceous characteristics since a fuller bodied wine could be overpowering.
     I found the recipe itself to be fairly straight forward: boil the pasta and vegetables together, make the sauce, and combine; however, one flaw stood out to me like a sore thumb.  The recipe instructed to add the thinly sliced sugar snap peas and asparagus to the boiling water along with the pasta and cook for 4-5 minutes.  This is fine if you prefer your veggies to be mushy; if not, then I would recommend adding them to the boiling water  no more than 1 minute before you drain the pasta.  That way, the veggies will be able to lend more of their much needed texture and color to what is an otherwise visually and texturally unremarkable dish.  Aside from the potential for overcooked veggies, I found little else to be wrong with the actual preparation of the dish.
     All in all, I thought the the meal was good.  It was very easy to prepare; from start to finish it only took about 30 minutes. It just needs some minor adjustments to the preparation procedures and a little more green garlic in order to showcase it as the star ingredient.  I would rate this dish as a 3.5 out of 5 based upon ease of preparation, and flavor.  If you are looking for a dish that is easy to prepare with a light flavor, then this is a dish for you.

Lentils: A Forgotten Treasure

     Lentils are a forgotten culinary treasure.  They come in many colors, shapes, and sizes, they are an incredibly good source of fiber and protein, and at $0.94 a pound (for the green or brown ones), they are very inexpensive; however, if you are like me, then you frequently end up with whole bags of these legumes stuffed inside of some drawer or hidden away in the back of a cabinet.  I buy them with the intention of of having them for a healthy meal, but a few months later, they are still hidden away, covered with a layer of dust.  This is quite a travesty because not only are lentils inexpensive and tasty, they are also incredibly versatile and quick to prepare.

     I think that part of the reason lentils go without the love they deserve is because their preparation can seem a little intimidating.  All too often are they overcooked, and many times they are served as a mushy stew or as an unremarkable member of a soup.  This is quite unfortunate because they are capable of so much more.  Fortunately, I was reminded of the versatile goodness of lentils on Friday.

     A friend of mine was coming over for supper, and she told me that she was bringing over a bag of lentils.  I spent a bit of time pondering over what to do with these little legumes because I had not cooked them in a long time.  Fortunately, it did not take me long to find an interesting application for them thanks to my culinary hero Alton Brown.

     As a recent graduation gift, I received a copy "Good Eats 2: The Middle Years".  Lo and behold, Brown had devoted a small chapter to lentils.  The book came with a very good process for cooking standard brown or green lentils, and some recipes which piqued my interest, not the least of which was lentil cookies (I'll be trying those later).  I decided to try the recipe for lentil salad, and served it over a bed of some lettuce mix with some European style bread.  The whole process from start to finish only took about 45 minutes, and it yielded wonderful results.  It was light, slightly tangy, and very filling, and my friend and I could not have been happier.  

     Thanks to this simple lentil application, I am now more excited than ever about trying other lentil applications as well as some other lentil varieties.  I now feel as though I have rediscovered a wonderful culinary treasure, and I challenge you to do the same.