Udon with Pea-Spinach Pesto and Umami Topping (with Salmon)

I don’t know what it is about pestos that keeps me coming back. I fully realize that pestos are fraught with the danger of cliche, given their role in some of the not-so-successful early-stage fusion, with well-meaning chefs and their attempts at edginess to establish market-leading trends. But I think that, as always, by keeping things extremely simple, pestos are real boons to breakaway cooks.

As many of you know, I’m a huge fan of frozen peas. I find them in some sense vastly superior to fresh peas — which in any case are only available for a few weeks out of the year — the now-high-tech freezing processes ensure that supervibrant garden-y pea flavor. And lordy, is it convenient to just have a stash in the freezer at all times. For this pesto, I had the last part of a fresh bag of spinach to use up, plus the classic breakaway ingredients of frozen peas, carrot juice, umami salt, and a little milk. I didn’t even bother thawing the peas, just a few cups directly into the blender with the following:

• 2 cups frozen peas
• 2 cups fresh spinach
• umami salt, pepper
• ¼ cup evoo
• 2 tablespoons carrot juice
• 2 tablespoons milk

I could have eaten and really enjoyed the udon with just this — and in warmer weather, this is excellent served cold — but I also had some crimini mushrooms on deck, ready for use, along with a piece of a yam that I decided to cut into thin, matchstick strips, and a leek. I decided to saute these together to create a quick little topping:that would give the dish some good texture and give it even more umami goodness (criminis, like all mushroooms, are jam-packed with umami, as are yams, as are leeks when they melt):

• 2 cups minced mushrooms
• 1 cup matchstick yam
• 1 large leek, minced

Into the saute pan they went, along with some ghee, as I waited for the water to heat up to cook the udon. And lo and behold, out of the deep-freeze came a salmon filet, bless its rare flesh, purchased long before this year’s ban — it was time for this to end its frozen isolation. It got a quick crust of my standard coriander, fennel, black pepper, and plenty of salt and pan fried in cast iron.

More ambitious than I had originally planned, but well worth the tiny extra effort involved.

Make frozen peas your friend! And let me know if you know any innovative or favorite use of them.