Another Day, Another Recipe for Chives

In cooking, a little redundancy with ingredients is to be expected. Sometimes it happens out of necessity--the season arrives and wham you have 50 zucchinis that are about to rot. Other times, an ingredient just sticks in your head and you find yourself unable to refrain from sneaking it into everything you cook. That’s how it’s been lately for Seattlest and chives.

It all started last week with some lovely buttermilk biscuits flecked with chives and cheddar cheese (say that five times fast). While they were delicious, we wanted to find a way to really showcase chives themselves. Unlike more hardy herbs, the light onion flavor of chives is best, and the springy green color brightest when they are left uncooked. In other words, chives are delicate, sensitive--to be noticed, they demand the simplest of preparations.

We settled on a light pasta dish of angel hair tossed with cream, lemon juice and of course, a healthy handful of chives. The fresh cream and squeeze of lemon complemented the chives without overwhelming them, and the whole dish sang of spring. The only thing that we lamented was being too lazy to get some scallops to sear and rest atop our pasta. We’d leave a recipe, but this dish is too simple to need one: just boil your pasta in some nice salty water, drain, and toss with a few tablespoons of cream, a squeeze of lemon and as many chives as you have on hand. Season to taste and enjoy.

Photo by Rachael Coyle