Gingery Sugar Snap Peas with a Kick

This is a great side to your fish or steak for a light dinner in a wake of conscious calorie intake for a "more skin season" :)

Blog's Category: My Own Fast and Easy

Gingery Sugar Snap Peas with a Kick

Intro

I'm not a diet person. My firm believe is we have to eat everything mother-nature generously give us and rejecting almost anything modern food processing technologies are offering nowadays, and no-no to diet pills or something like that. 

Said that, I still want to lose these couple extra winter pounds I've being lovingly gathering over all that holiday seasons. Well, eating near zero to very lightly in evening works for me. I recently heard about that 8-hour "diet" when you eat any 8-hour stretch in your day and no-food the rest of a day. It all make sense to me.. but refusing to put precious myself into this harsh conditions, I figured out that my Near Zero to Very Light thingy works too!

Slowly getting to the point, last night's Gingery Sugar Snap Peas with a Kick is totally in-line with my current way to eat and I'm glad to share successful recipe, I happened to put together, with you.
 

What is it

Gingery Sugar Snap Peas with a Kick is my stand-alone, extra-light dinner, which consists of peas, carrots and bell pepper, boiled all together and mixed with some heat-customizable spice mix with a tiny piece of butter to bring whole lot of flavor and satisfaction.

As I already mentioned, it can be a classy and healthy side to your main protein - meat or fish. To enjoy it as stand-alone, but still somewhat-filling meal, add some feta, goat or parmesan cheese on top. Sprinkling some nuts or croutons on it is a great option as well.

Taste Description

Sweetness of peas (it's Sugar Snap after all!), overlapping with carrot and pepper sweetness, create very nice background for classic oriental combination of garlic / ginger / soy sauce / sesame / pepper flakes. Beautiful tender crunchiness of vegetables and light butter presence adds up to overall pleasure from this vegetarian dish.

How to Serve

It's best when served warm. If you are planning to eat it as a salad, cold, then replace butter with some nice vegetable/nut oil (my favorite - Roasted Walnut Oil with mind-blowing flavor).

Gingery Sugar Snap Peas with a Kick

 

For a "4-piece family" size:

• large, 10"x10", bag of Sugar Snap peas
• 3 large carrots, angle-cut into extra-thick matchsticks
• 1 orange (or other color) bell pepper
• 1 tbs grated fresh ginger
• 2-3 minced garlic cloves
• 1.5 tbs red pepper flakes for a medium-level kick (so adjust accordingly)
• 4-5 tbs low sodium soy sauce
• 1 tsp sesame oil (optional)
• 1 tbs sugar
• 2 tbs roasted sesame seeds

- In a large pot, bring about 1/2 gallon of water (add 1/2 teaspoon of salt) to a boil.

- Add Sugar Snap Peas, cook for 1-2 minutes, and add carrots and pepper. Cook for 2-3 minutes more. Take off heat.

- Drain, transfer to a same pot. Add the rest of ingredients, toss well and enjoy!

Some Notes

- If you hate "stringiness" of pea pods, cut up both ends of each pea pod. Personally, for a sake of less preparation I'm "in peace" with pea strings and consciously ignoring it.

- I always use Low Sodium Soy Sauce whenever recipe calls for a soy sauce. For some reason low sodium soy sauce is more flavorful and less concentrated at the same time than Dark Soy Sauce.

- I always buy my Red Pepper Flakes in Asian store in a large bags - I guess, it's Korean style red pepper flakes called gochugaru. Its spiciness is even, tolerable and it gives nice orange-red hue to a dish contrary to common red pepper flakes mostly consisting of whole pepper seeds which have no more than spotty "burning" fire and brings no flavor nor color to a dish.

- Do not omit sugar - it compliments your garlic/ginger flavor perfectly. If you want, substitute it with little less amount of honey or maple syrup.

 

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