San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Fill buttery pastries with spring favorites and spices
A riff on a classic samosa, puff pastry, peas and green garlic make for a flavorful snack that satisfies any craving, anytime
My favorite springtime memory of my kids is when I’d get green peas, still in their pods from the farmers market. They would be so curious as to where the peas came from. They’d help me open the pods and remove the peas into a bowl — and, well, half of the peas would be eaten in the process.
Each spring, I look forward to the arrival of green peas and green garlic. They typically start appearing at my local farmers market in March and are available for just a couple months of the entire year.
Slightly pungent and very flavorful, green garlic is a young garlic plant whose bulbs are not fully matured. Farmers typically start planting the garlic seeds during autumn and harvest the crop in early spring. Green garlic has a milder, fresher taste than its dried counterpart: garlic cloves.
My latest recipe, Green Pea & Green Garlic Masala Puffs with Carrot Chutney, is a riff on a childhood dish called Matar Kachori or Peas Kachori. It’s a famous Gujarati snack, typically served at events such as weddings. The appetizer is essentially whole wheat dough stuffed with green pea masala filling and fried to golden perfection.
My 92-year-old grandma, who has slowed down over the years, used to make them really well, and it was something I would always look forward to when I’d visit her.
A couple of weeks ago, we were up in the beautiful town of Mendocino for a few days of decompressing and spending time with family. We went to the must-see Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens, with its stunning flora and fauna along with a drop-dead gorgeous view of the ocean from the cliff. There’s a vegetable garden with a couple beds filled with green garlic, and I, of course, got excited to see the green garlic!
I explained to the garden staff that I wrote a column called Modern Vegetarian in the San Francisco Chronicle, and that my next recipe revolved around green garlic and peas. The staff graciously let me pluck a few stalks of their flavorful green garlic, even though they do not sell their produce. All the vegetables harvested from their garden are generously donated to the food banks in the area. Picking the green garlic right out of the garden was a fun experience, and I used it to test this recipe.
Most people are familiar with the classic samosa filling of potatoes and peas, but this green pea and green garlic version is truly delicious and underrated. I coarsely grind green peas, ginger and green chile in a food processor. Then I add the mixture to a skillet with oil and cumin seeds. Lemon juice, coconut, peanuts and cilantro give it body and elevate the taste.
I use puff pastry here for ease, forming filled triangles and sealing with heavy cream. I place the puffs in the freezer for a few minutes so that they don’t lose shape when baking. They’ll puff up and turn golden brown in the oven. Be sure to wait for them to cool down a bit before digging in. They are best eaten the day of with carrot chutney, cilantro-mint chutney or even tomato ketchup.
The carrot chutney comes together fairly quickly. It starts off with sauteing onions, green garlic and carrots in oil, then seasoning with tangy tamarind paste and blending the mixture. I garnish it with fresh green garlic, which can be eaten raw since it’s mild.
If you want to get ahead, you can store the filling in the fridge for a few days, then assemble and bake the puffs whenever the craving strikes. My kids love them as an after-school snack.