Roasted Snap Pea Salad With Yakult-Style Dressing

Here’s a dish that Frost (my daughter) and I call our Inner Smile Salad. It’s everything you want for a cookout. It’s super easy, so you can make it ahead and bring it in a Tupperware. Or you can prop a cast-iron pan on the beach flames and make it right there and then. After a hot fire, lots of sun, and piles of grilled meat, it’s a hydrating, cooling, creamy, green gift that’s fun to eat, with a mix of savory elements tucked amid the sweetness that Frost loves. We hammer bowls of it. The dressing is my knockoff of a Japanese probiotic milk drink called Yakult. It’s fermented with a different strain of bacteria than yogurt, and that’s where it gets its citrusy tang.
Recipe information
Total Time
30 minutes
Yield
2 or 3 servings
Ingredients
Yakult-Style Dressing
Roasted Snap Pea Salad
Preparation
Yakult-Style Dressing
Step 1
In a small bowl, mix ½ cup (120 g) yogurt, preferably homemade, 1 Tbsp. honey, 2 tsp. fresh lime juice, and 1 tsp. fresh lemon juice, preferably Meyer, until fully combined.
Do Ahead: Dressing keeps, in the fridge in an airtight container, for up to 1 week.
Roasted Snap Pea Salad
Step 2
In a 9" (23-cm) cast-iron pan over high heat, get 1 Tbsp. toasted sesame oil ripping hot and smoking. Drop in 12 oz. (340 g) sugar snap peas, stems and fibrous ribs removed, and cook them without moving them until one side gets good and charred, 3–5 minutes. When they’re hissing at you and barely wanting to stay inside the pan, give the peas a push. Some will turn over. Add ¾ tsp. kosher salt and continue cooking the peas for 3–4 minutes more. You want them unevenly charred. Put the peas on a sheet pan and stow them in the fridge or pop them in a cooler to get nice and cold, about 15 minutes.
Step 3
Remove the tops and bottoms of 3 Persian cucumbers. Holding your knife at a 45-degree angle, cut a chunk of cuke. Roll the cuke 180 degrees and cut again to get weird, triangular pieces. Repeat with all the cukes, then smash all the pieces with the side of your blade. They’ll hold together because their shape gives them maximum skin. Add the cukes and chilled snap peas to a serving bowl.
Step 4
Add enough dressing to the serving bowl to heavily coat the veg and mix well. Toss in ½ bunch fresh chives, cut crosswise into thirds, 1 tsp. toasted white sesame seeds, and 1 tsp. black sesame seeds, and serve.