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Playing it cool with mint

Mint adds a dazzling dash of flavor to many dishes

The pizzazz of fresh mint is turning up in more and more dishes on restaurant menus and in recipes found in cookbooks and food magazines.

There's leafy-green mint in pesto and potato salads. Mint in fruit salsas, dressings and sauces. Mint in chocolate confections and atop sliced fruit.

I think the mojito is fueling the fresh-mint trend. The Cuban libation teams oodles of fresh mint with rum, sugar and lime juice. Over the past few years, it has become a must-have concoction in watering holes from coast to coast. “Mojitos are extremely, extremely popular,” said Nicole Aloni, author of “The Backyard Bartender: 55 Cool Summer Cocktails” (Clarkson Potter). “It's the only cocktail that can be placed in the same category popularity-wise as the margarita.”

I contend that mint's spunky taste plays a starring role in reeling drinkers in. That signature flavor makes folks eager to spread their culinary wings and give mint a try in other dishes.

“I think they love the freshness,” Aloni said, adding that consumers feel as if they are eating fresh food when mint is included, whether it's in a cocktail or something else.

Yes, the perky taste is clean and cool – a perfect flavor profile to add to warm-weather treats.

Here are 10 easy dishes that showcase fresh mint, including Aloni's practical formula for making mojitos for a crowd. Either spearmint or peppermint can be used in these recipes:

• 1. Pitcher of mojitos for eight
• 2. Beet salad with perky mint vinaigrette
• 3. Sliced melon with mint-scented syrup
• 4. Easy chocolate cake with mint whipped-cream frosting This is so simple to make and so delicious. Prepare a cake-mix chocolate layer cake (doctored up by adding sour cream to make it rich) and top with minty whipped cream (Chocolate Cake With Mint Whipped Cream Frosting.)
• 5. Rice salad with attitude. This versatile salad (Rice Salad With Feta, Citrus and Mint) teams beautifully with grilled fish, chicken or pork. The cooled rice is tossed with a citrus-y dressing, then topped with cucumber slices, tomato wedges, chopped fresh mint and crumbled feta cheese.
• 6. moked chicken or turkey appetizers a la mint
• 7. Minted potato salad , Most often potatoes are teamed with basil or parsley in salads; mint gives this potato salad a welcome palate surprise.
• 8. Sugar snaps with class
• 9. Hot-weather mint ice tea
• 10. Mint sugar Mint sugar meets peach gratin

Top peach halves with a custard-like batter (just enough to surround fruit), then sprinkles on a mint-sugar-nut mixture and bakes it until peaches are tender and a crust has formed on the custard mixture. Serve it with vanilla ice cream.

Great dishes with mint:

Peach Gratin With Mint Sugar
Chocolate Cake With Mint Whipped Cream Frosting
Rice Salad With Feta, Citrus and Mint

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