Big love for the tiny pea

Spring has to be every chef's favorite season. With our restaurant being named "Seasons," we get passionate when the seasons change. The bounty of vegetables suddenly available after an unbearably long Chicago winter of root vegetables, with the occasional joy of a tangerine, is so inspiring!

While the variety is wide, from morel mushrooms to countless incarnations of onions, the general theme is green. And nothing embodies that green feeling more than the humble pea.

It is hard to imagine that something so vibrant and delicate thrives in the winter, only to reach its peak just as the thaw begins. For most of us, our childhood memories of peas are limited to a component in our chicken pot pie or an accompaniment to frozen carrots.

Fortunately, in other parts of the world, peas play an important role in cuisine -- particularly in England and France, where the fresh sweet pea is celebrated and consumed in considerable quantities. Did you know the average Englishman consumes more than 9,000 peas a year?

I didn't really give peas their due until an experience at a three-star Michelin restaurant in France. It was the first warm day of spring, and I had just arrived from miserable weather. Paris was warm and sunny and buzzing with happy people.

The room at Ledoyen is formidable and a little intimidating, particularly when you head up the staircase and look right into the engraving of 1792 on the wall. To say they had been at it awhile would be an understatement.

The dinner was magnificent, but what stood out was the little side dish of peas served with the main course to every guest.

I thought it odd that a menu that had been so precise in its flavors and variety would have the same item sent to everyone. When I asked the maitre d' why, he said the chef was so excited when he saw the first peas of the season, he wanted everyone to taste them.

This experience had a profound effect on me.

Here, this great French chef, in a very proper Parisian institution of gastronomy, was "excited" over spring peas. His little addition to the menu that evening instilled in me an appreciation for all foods, but particularly for spring and, to no less extent, peas.

The peas I had that night were peeled twice and taken from the shell, and then the fine layer around the pea was removed, split in half and warmed in butter with minced shallots and a little mint. The peas still had texture to them, unlike the soft, watery peas of my youth. And the mint and shallots were just the right flavors to show off the peas. No doubt many a cook has since cursed my learning of the double shucking of peas.

We now have many varieties of the pea available to us and we make good use of them in our kitchen. Snow peas, snap peas and pea tendrils (the vines and greens of the pea plant) get equal status on our spring menus. This particular dish uses three varieties to make a very green risotto.

Kevin Hickey is executive chef of Seasons in the Four Seasons Chicago, 120 E. Delaware.