Summer of mint

[flambeau]

For reasons that do not need exploring at this juncture, I acquired two mint plants back in May. (Okay, full disclosure, they were left over at the end of a bartending gig.) I took them home and repotted them and figured they were cheap supermarket herbs-inna-pot and would die on me in a week or so

Comments

[mayatawi]

Not so much a recipe, but if you like plain yogurt: dry a bunch of the mint, then crumble it into yogurt, mix, and eat. Awesomely tasty, and uses up more mint than you'd expect.

[flambeau]

*nod* Sounds worth a try. Picking and drying the mint seems like a good idea to reduce its taking-over-the-world-ness. :)

[marycrawford]

I love this version of raita, which goes well with curries and hot days:
- peel a cucumber, and then chop it into bits or grate it (if you want, take the seedy bits out first)
- squeeze the results to let the excess juice run off
- stir into yoghurt, preferably the nice thick Greek/Bulgarian/Turkish kind.
- chop up your fresh mint, then add that too in generous amounts.
- add a pinch of salt.
- now you have raita, but if you want, you can turn it into tzatziki by adding a splash of lemon juice and a clove of garlic, raw and chopped into bits.
- nom nom nom!

[flambeau]

Mmmmm. Yes. They sell Turkish yoghurt in buckets down at the smaller grocery store. Possibly I don't need that much raita, but oo, tempting.

[graycastle]

This is one of my favourite soups, and it does call for quite a bit of mint. It's great as a summer soup, too.

Pea Mint Soup

2 tsp olive oil
1/2 cup shallots, finely chopped
1 pound green peas
1/4 cup fresh mint, chopped
1/4 cup fresh parsley, chopped
3 cups broth (chicken or vegetable)

Heat oil, sautee shallots, then add peas, mint, parsley and broth. Bring to a boil, then simmer for 20 minutes. Transfer to a blender and puree until smooth. With these kinds of soups, people usually say to reserve some of the liquid when transferring to the blender, then add some or all of it back in post-puree, but honestly, I've found this one is fine if you just puree everything together; the consistency is excellent. Top, if desired, with yogurt or sour cream, along with pretty mint sprigs.

[flambeau]

That sounds really interesting, it does. Is the parsley crucial? (Allergic.) And how about fresh vs frozen peas?

[graycastle]

nah, I've made it without parsley before (I'm not allergic, but it's a pain in the ass to go to the store to get it). And I always use frozen peas, because it's easier, but I'm sure fresh would be delicious. It's a really fast and low-maintenance soup.

[flambeau]

Okay, good! Sounds like my kind of food. :)

[temaris]

Pimms and lemonade. Mint sauce (handful of chopped leaves, couple of spoons of vinegart, a spoon of sugar -- get a proper recipe if you want this to work!) on lamb, delicious. Minted new potatoes; minted peas.

[flambeau]

I'm not even sure you can get Pimm's here, but yes on the lemonade. And I'll try the potatoes; potatoes are always served with dill here and I don't really like dill, so time to see if I like something else. *g* The reason I'm not sure about mint sauce is it seems to involve such a lot of vinegar. Can you even taste the mint?

[temaris]

You can taste the mint -- but it does have to be non-malt vinegar, and it is a very sharp flavour. The sugar dulls the vinegar flavour of it a bit -- maybe something to try in a very small amount :-)

Butter and mint on new potatoes is really rather nice -- imo :-) But then, I don't much like dill -- or parsley, the other inevitable herbal accompaniment, very much either.

No Pimms is a tragedy. I wonder how difficult it would be to get a bottle to you :-) We've been drinking it on sunny days -- so the bottle's still pretty full ;-) -- with thin slices of cucumber, mint leaves, and strawberries. Joyful :-)

[flambeau]

Apparently to get Pimms you have to special order it. Huh. But I'm definitely going to experiment with potatoes. :)

delurking with a mint and lentil salad recipe

[quillori]

Er ... hello there. I've sort of been hanging around in silence for some time and this looked like a good opportunity to delurk and say hi. So, a recipe:

6 tbsp mint, torn into small pieces
300g Castelluccio or Puy lentils, rinsed
1 dried red chilli, crumbled
3 whole garlic cloves, peeled
4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
juice of ½ a lemon
salt and freshly ground black pepper

Place the lentils in a thick-bottomed saucepan with the garlic and cover generously with cold water. Bring to the boil and then lower to a simmer. Add a few mint stalks and cook, covered, for 30 mins, or until the lentils are al dente. Drain and discard the mint stalks and garlic. Return the lentils to the pan and, while still warm, stir in the olive oil and lemon juice, dried chilli and torn mint. Season well with salt and pepper (flaky salt is good). Serve warm, not hot, with a salad or green vegetable dressed with oil and lemon. Serves 6.

more mint suggestions

[quillori]

Porcini Mushrooms Baked with Mint

Take pieces of foil about 25cm long, as many pieces as there are people eating, and put some oil on one half of each piece. Take some porcinis, let's say just a bit under 500g per person, and slice them up, slices about 1 wide. Layer the slices on the oiled part of the foil with as much sliced garlic as you like, season and add a couple of nice sprigs of mint to each portion. Drizzle with extra virgin olive oil. Fold the foil over and make sure the edges are twisted into a tight seal. Put on a baking sheet in a preheated 220ºC (425ºF) oven and bake 15 mins. Serve in the sealed foil packages.

Cabbage Salad

Mix finely shredded Savoy cabbage, say 200g, with 1/3 cup each watercress and mint. Make a dressing with lemon juice, crushed garlic, a little dried mint, olive oil, salt and pepper.

Mint RisottoMake a simple risotto with chicken stock and a bit of vermouth. Put some finely chopped celery in along with the onions at the start and add some prosciutto (not too finely sliced) along with the rice.

Re: more mint suggestions

[flambeau]

And these also sound fab, and now I am hungry. I especially like the risotto recipe; I tend to make risotto pretty often, so trying out a mint version should be fun. And really, anything that involves prosciutto has to be a Good Thing.

I guess my summer plans are all taken care of! There will be cooking. a lot of it. *g* Thank you so much for all the recipes! *happy*

Re: delurking with a mint and lentil salad recipe

[flambeau]

Ooh. This sounds excellent, and also it sounds like something I have most of the ingredients to already, so it seems like a good place to start. Maybe my great love for lentils will save me from the mint! :) Thank you.

[funkyreunion]

Mint chutney?

[flambeau]

Maybe so, although it sounds labor-intensive. :) I'll look into it!