Culinary Poll #001: Speaking of Green Peas

Some adore green peas, some cannot stand even the thought of them. Where do you stand on the green pea issue and if you are among those who enjoy them, favorite dishes and/or recipes please. And please, your comments on fresh versus frozen…….

I've taken to growing them in the last couple of years, just 3-4 plants so don't get many peas off each year. For this tiny volume I find they're great ingredients to pasta dishes, which allows the (pea's) flavour the chance to show.

regards

Ian

One of the vegetables I most adore. When truly young I'll eat them raw in their shells. When slightly more mature, removed from the shells and eaten raw. As to cooking, a nearly infinite set of possibilities......steamed with nothing more than a bit of butter and salt, into puree, for soups, seasoned with saffron, in minestrone or uppa d'Acqua Cotta, together with olive oil finely chopped spinach, olive oil and garlic as a pasta sauce.

And, of course, as part of the preparation of tournedos Choron, consomme Brunoise and Genoise risotto.

Best
Rogov

I have loved green peas ever since I first grew them as a five year old farm boy -- my best job was driving a truck between the giant rollers that shelled them to the factory that packed them. The boxes weighed 80 pounds and the fresh pea smell was intoxicating.

Absolutely fresh peas are heavenly, but very hard to find in quality over the growing season. Some of the newer varieties are bred for beautiful albeit inedible shells to sucker the consumer into buying them in hot weather. The grow best below 70F at the hottest part of the day.

Luckily, frozen peas are only marginally less heavenly -- they are picked and packed at the very peak of their season, and the modern fast freezing techniques are superb. Canned peas are a distant third, edible but only a little better than that.

I like them in many variations, but this recipe from Andrea Immer Robinson is outstanding. She was peddling a 2003 Gary Farrell Russian River Pinot Noir for $34 -- I was a satisfied peddlee -- but the recipe endures in our house:

PROSCIUTTO PASTA WITH PEAS Serves 4
Subtle, earthy-sweet and meaty – like the wine!
½ lb fettucine
1 T unsalted butter
1 shallot, minced
1 c young fresh peas or frozen baby peas
¼ cup fruity extra virgin olive oil, or more to taste
Salt and pepper
¼ c chopped parsley
Parmigiano Reggiano cheese for grating, optional

Cook the pasta in lots of boiling salted water according to package directions. While the pasta is
cooking heat the butter in a skillet on medium high until it foams. Add the shallot, reduce the
heat to medium-low and cook until it starts to soften. Add the peas and, with tongs, put the
cooked pasta directly into the skillet so that some of the water clinging to it goes into the skillet.
Add the prosciutto, olive oil, salt and pepper and parsley and mix with tongs to blend well.
Remove from the heat and taste, adding more salt, pepper and oil if desired. Serve immediately
with grated cheese if desired.

Great meal!

Best, Bob

I must say that this "green stuff" is something I really dislike. Pea soup, made of dried peas, is very common food in Finland, and unfortunately we had that too often at school when I was a child. It was something that I could not eat then, and simply won't eat these days either.

I love green peas but served just cooked and dipped in melted butter. It may be only a Scandinavian style or am I wrong ?

Pena, Hi....

Methinks you are wrong, and I'd guess that this is the most popular way for serving green peas. After all, Marie Antoinette, Madame Dubarry, Benito Mussolino and Lucky Luciano loved them that way.

Best
Rogov

Could I refer to you the annual pea-throwing championship which this year took place on 12 July in Sussex. You take a green pea, place it at the end of a small tube, place the other end of the tube in your mouth and blow. The world record is 38.7 metres.

http://www.lewesarms.org.uk/history.asp

Love 'em.

Hated peas when I was a child: only came to enjoy them as I grew up. Do you think that pea-eating can be used as a rite of passage? To be more accurate, I hated cooked peas, and liked them raw. I enjoyed going out into the pea paddock with my father, picking buckets full of fat green pea pods, and eating as many as I liked while I picked.

Frozen peas are fine - I'm with you, Bob! - my favourite way to prepare them is to put the frozen peas into a small casserole dish with a tight fitting lid, with a tablespoonful of water and a blob of butter, put the lid on and put them in the oven with the roast or casserole you are cooking. Leave them for about half an hour to 40 minutes, never lifting the lid till you take them out.

I must confess to liking tinned peas. Probably makes me a philistine ... one of many things that make me one. Tinned peas are correctly eaten cold, as part of a cold collation that also should contain slices of pickled beetroot and a scoop of potato salad.

Matilda

I like them, but among all vegetables they suffer most from being canned. Canned peas taste like anonymous vegetable mush. Fresh is always better, but I feel like peas do fairly well frozen.

Funny story - my dad hates the things - will not eat them. When he was 5 or 6 years old, he was offered a new bike if he would just eat his peas - he didn't get the bike!

Whatever one says with re canned (tinned if some prefer) peas, corn or carrots ... among the very best foods in the world when you are on manoeuvres in the army. Open can, dig in with a spoon, feast and forget the battle for a moment or two.

Best
Rogov

Whatever one says with re canned (tinned if some prefer) peas, corn or carrots ... among the very best foods in the world when you are on manoeuvres in the army. Open can, dig in with a spoon, feast and forget the battle for a moment or two.

Best
Rogov

I think I'd prefer an MRE . . . .

The peas I actually like are the ones where you eat the pod: snow peas or snap peas.

I like the frozen ones well enough, but when I was in Weight Watchers, peas counted as a starch, and there was no way I was going to use my starch allotment on peas when I could be eating corn or potatoes or bread.

Love them when done properly - which means I hate the unaccountable British practice of turning them into something called 'mushy peas' that looks (and usually tastes) like green wallpaper paste.

[Jenise]

Peas are one of the most heavenly foods on earth. A bowl full of hot and buttered peas is a frequent breakfast for me.

I like them in many variations, but this recipe from Andrea Immer Robinson is outstanding. She was peddling a 2003 Gary Farrell Russian River Pinot Noir for $34 -- I was a satisfied peddlee -- but the recipe endures in our house:

PROSCIUTTO PASTA WITH PEAS Serves 4
Subtle, earthy-sweet and meaty – like the wine!
½ lb fettucine
1 T unsalted butter
1 shallot, minced
1 c young fresh peas or frozen baby peas
¼ cup fruity extra virgin olive oil, or more to taste
Salt and pepper
¼ c chopped parsley
Parmigiano Reggiano cheese for grating, optional

Cook the pasta in lots of boiling salted water according to package directions. While the pasta is
cooking heat the butter in a skillet on medium high until it foams. Add the shallot, reduce the
heat to medium-low and cook until it starts to soften. Add the peas and, with tongs, put the
cooked pasta directly into the skillet so that some of the water clinging to it goes into the skillet.
Add the prosciutto, olive oil, salt and pepper and parsley and mix with tongs to blend well.
Remove from the heat and taste, adding more salt, pepper and oil if desired. Serve immediately
with grated cheese if desired.

Great meal!

Best, Bob

Bob,

How much prosciutto and in what form?

Dave, I never noticed it wasn't in the recipe as Andrea supplied it. I've added 4 to 6 ounces, chopped small, of Parma ham, the sun dried version.

Thanks for catching me up -- I must have been reading the title as an ingredient.

Thank you Bob. I am going to try this very soon.

On any given day in any Soviet restaurant, in my days, you could find mashed potato and green peas together on a menu. It was most common side dish ever. I would never touch the green peas; I hated them in that form. However I love them in soup and in salads. Go figure. So witch one should I vote then?

When I was in middle school and doing Phishhead carvavaning with my older brother in the Midwest, we stayed over a college friend of his and the mother made some outstanding 7-layer [Summer?] Salad. It has a full layor of delicioius peas, and I always think about eating this but haven't seen it ever again. Does anyone have a recipe for this salad?

Best wishes,
E.Y.