Snow Peas have been in season and what better way to celebrate this delicious vegetable than with a new recipe. I concocted this side dish with only one thing in mind: showcase the natural, delicate sweetness of the peas in the simplest manner possible. Thus, Mai’s Garlic Snow Peas was born! Excuse my dramatics, I simply love eating snow peas. On to the recipe…

Ingredients:

4 cups Snow Peas – I like to peel the strings out of the peas. To do this, use a knife to cut the edge of the snow pea and pull across the bottom. A string should come off the edge of the pea. Do this on both sides of the pea.

3-4 Garlic Cloves, roughly diced

2 1/2 tbsp Mirin

1 tbsp Olive Oil

Salt, to taste – I use 2 pinches.

Start by heating the olive oil in a saute pan at medium heat. Add the garlic to the oil, stirring constantly until aromatic, about 2 minutes.

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Add the Snow Peas. Cook for 3-5 minutes, stirring frequently.

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These peas were just added to the pan.

When the peas start to glisten and turn a brighter green, add the mirin and salt. Continue to cook until the mirin is almost completely evaporated, stirring frequently. This should take another 5 minutes, and the peas should deepen in color.

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This has been cooking for 3 minutes and I just added the mirin.

Serve them nice and hot. This recipe has a lot of room for variation. Other ideas: add some red pepper to spice it up!

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This is the finished product. The peas have lost volume and turned tender. There is almost no liquid left, but the peas are not yet burning.

If you have a suggestion to add to this recipe, please comment and I’ll try it out.

2 thoughts on “Garlic Snow Peas”

    1. I haven’t used frozen snow peas before. However, if they are frozen, you definitely want to be careful how you cook them. My recommendation would be to try boiling them first following the instructions provided on the packaging. Take them out about 3 minutes early and set aside. Then heat the garlic as described in the recipe, add your salt, the Mirin, and some red pepper (or something for a bit of a kick) to the pan and cook off the Mirin until there is only about 1 tbsp left. This will allow the sauce to develop without diluting it with water from the frozen peas. Finally, add the snow peas and cook for the last 3-4 minutes in the mixture and serve. I’ll look into getting some frozen peas and try out a few methods myself to see what works best.

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