Toss Together a Spring Sunchoke Fava Bean Salad

While spring is one of my favorite seasons, it's the brief overlap as winter morphs into spring that's truly magical. It's a sentiment that's perfectly captured by verdant crocuses poking their bulbous purple blossoms out from under a blanket of melting snow. In the food department, it's a similar scene, with the last vestiges of winter's root vegetables for sale alongside spring onions and peas.

This salad is my homage to this fleeting time of year with crisp, earthy root vegetables like sunchokes and radishes tossed together with sweet spring onions and fava beans. Dressed in a maple mustard and lemon dressing, the salad presents a tantalizing bouquet of textures and spring colors that keep your fork returning for more.

The term "spring onion" is a bit confusing because it's often used interchangeably with "scallion" or "green onion". Spring onions, are the fresh, partially-matured bulbs of regular onions, or the maturing bulbs of scallions, depending on how you look at it. The bulbs are white in color and often come with the greens still attached. Taste-wise they're milder and sweeter than regular onions, which make them perfect for our salad.

Although they are milder, spring onions can still be a bit pungent which is why I like to give them a soak in a solution of baking soda and water. The baking soda neutralizes the volatile sulfur compounds that give onions their tear-inducing spiciness, leaving them crisp, sweet and flavorful.

While the root vegetables need no taming, they benefit from a soak in water as well, taking on a crisp texture as they absorb some water. To save time, you can do all the soaking the day before you plan to serve the salad, and then dry and toss everything with the dressing just before serving.