This salad is inspired by Yotam Ottolenghi's "Plenty", a beautiful vegetarian cookbook. The photos are vibrant and inspiring. My oldest daughter, Rebekah, born before my conversion, is a bit of a foodie and always eager to share new food experiences. She's given me this book, along with "Jerusalem", so spark my imagination.

In honor of my mother's 84th birthday, a gluten-free, egg-free, dairy-free celebration, I've brought an assortment of my salad experiments. Rebekah, looks at this salad and says, "Hmm, reminds me of a picture I've seen in 'Plenty'." So, if mimicking is a form of flattery, I take recognizing a counterfit as a compliment. The cookbook version is made from haricort verte, snow peas, and peas with nigella seeds (good luck finding those!). My version is haricort verte, snow peas, edamame and black sesame seeds. Of course, while taking the picture, I didn't have black sesame seeds on hand. They do add a finishing touch when serving the salad.

The salad has a fresh, crisp taste enhanced with coriander seeds, mustard seeds, mild chili and tarragon. There is lemon zest but no addition of any acid - the temptation is to want some lemon juice. I add the lemon wedge on the side. If I squeeze lemon juice onto the salad in advance of serving, I'll loose the vibrant green colors of the beans. I served this salad 2 days after making it; keeping the bean mixture separate of the greens. It looked beautiful and fresh as the day I made it. In the catering world, in the Shabbat and 2 day holiday world, this is a big plus.

I used baby field greens as the base of this salad. Without the greens, it is an interesting 3 bean salad of sorts.....add cubes of tofu cutlet and you have a different animal.

Ingredients:

• 1 1/4 cup haricort verte, trimmed (or green beans)
• 2 1/4 cup snow peas, trimmed
• 1 3/4 cups frozen edamame
• 2 teaspoons coriander seeds, roughly crushed with mortar and pestle
• 1 teaspoon mustard seeds
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1/2 small red onion, slivered from top to bottom
• 1 mild fresh red chili, seeded and finely chopped
• 1 garlic clove
• zest of lemon oil
• 2 tablespoon chopped tarragon
• salt to taste
• Mixed baby field greens (optional)

Steps:

Wash and trim the beans.

Bring a small sauce pan of water to a boil. Add the green beans and blanch for about 4 minutes. Remove the beans from the water and put them into a bowl of ice water. This stops the cooking and crisps the beans.

Boil more water and repeat the previous step with the snow peas except cook for only 1 minute. I tossed the edamame into the water with halfway through the cooking time. Strain and place into iced water to refresh. Drain again.

Toss the beans, snow peas and edamame into a large bowl. Set aside.

To make the dressing, put the olive oil into a small sauce pan and heat. Add the mustard seeds and coriander seeds, cover. When the seeds begin to pop, remove from the heat and pour over the bean mixture.

Add all the remaining ingredients.

Toss and taste, adjust salt. Serve on baby greens or as is.

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