Easy Peasy Matcha Crusta
Sugar snap peapods are both green and in season, so they were a perfect fit, thematically. I love their earthy bitterness. In order to bring out their best flavor, we cooked some of them sous vide at 85C for 15 minutes, and combined their juice with that of raw peapods. The raw ones have more green plant complexity, while the cooked ones trade some bitterness for sweetness.
To the peapod juice, I added fresh mint juice, sugar, and tartaric acid. The exact seasoning of your juices is a matter of taste. I cannot tell you a precise recipe because your crop of peapods will be different from mine. Trust your own judgement, and try to find a balance of sweet, sour, and bitter. Add a pinch of salt, and the juice of fresh mint until it finishes with a bit of cooling menthol.
Regarding the choice of acid, how is one to choose? I wanted acidity, not flavor, because the drink is complex on its own, but I also needed to cut the sweetness. I opted to use tartaric acid for this drink, in order to preserve the purity of the flavor, rather than accidentally invoke the juiciness of malic acid or the lemony quality of citric acid. It's a curious thing that these acids, without affecting flavor, are still evocative of their common carriers.
A crust of green tea around the rim of the glass made an elegant garnish, and its flavor complemented the other green elements of the drink. Greens of most varieties pair well together, and the grassiness of matcha is no exception. In the same vein, gin, made from green botanicals, likes other greens.
Easy Peasy Matcha Crusta
1.5 oz gin
1.5 oz Peapod juice blend (see above)
Shake, double strain, and pour into a glass rimmed with green tea.
For the matcha crusta:
Combine white sugar and matcha powder, coat the rim of a glass with juice from a wedge of lime, and apply it to the matcha mixture.
It matched the meal, of course, which consisted of a high tech lamb nugget, deep fried in panko and parsley, on a bed of green pea mash, topped with rowanberry jam.
Mint and gin complement lamb, peas match with peapods. It's not rocket science, but it would have been if we served it with arugula.
Cheers!