April 03, 2008

Okay folks...

...what do I do with these?!?

For the first time in my 3 year history with my CSA, I got something in my box that I'm not sure what to do with.

Pea greens.

I tried Google. Not much there there.

Wikipedia's never heard of them.

And while there are a handful of recipes out there, nothing looks like what I have here.

So I'm counting on you.

Someone out there's surely got some experience working with these. Or a recipe bookmarked somewhere. My pea greens await your inspiration.

From the archives...
In 2006 we found Pho in Fremont.

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9 comments:

Peabody said...

Sorry, I am at a loss.

Joanna said...

Pea tips, absolutely fabulous, very hard to buy, mostly you have to grow them yourself.

They're wonderful lightly steamed and in a salad. Or to finish a risotto made with a pea puree, plenty of mint, good stock and a light hand with the parmesan. I can give you a proper recipe if that's not clear enough ;)

Joanna

Mia said...

I also acquired some pea greens recently, on two different occasions. The first time, the greens were soft and light, and I added them to a pasta dish with goat cheese and spring garlic, just blanching them very lightly in the pasta water as the pasta finished cooking. The second time, the greens were much more stalk-like; I tried sauteing them with some other greens, garlic, and soy....and they were inedible! Moral of the story: make sure you have the soft pea green tips, and not the tough stalks...

Cynthia said...

I've never heard of them.

ChefSara said...

so you piqued my curiosity and I googled them. But lots of the pictures I saw on google didn't quite look like the picture you posted...most were more shoot or sprout like, and not leafy. I have no experience with these at all, but, I noticed in my 90 second google search that adding them to stir fries seemed popular (one that looked particularly interesting was a gingered dandelion and pea green stir fry). Or...how do they taste fresh? Do they give you any salad inspiration? This almost makes me want to go see if I can find some and see what I can come up with...I can't wait til our CSA starts in a few weeks!

breadchick said...

Dolores, I can't remember which one but either Bon Appetit or Gourmet this month had named peas and pea greens their ingredient of the month with a lot of wonderful looking recipes for pea greens.

I just read both of these on the trains to and from NYC this week, but left them on the train :-( I'm really thinking it was the April edition of Bon Appetit.

Anonymous said...

We have had them many times out - even last night at Maverick. I would make a nice little sauce, something light and simple, sauted garlic or shallots, olive oil or butter, maybe some white wine and some fresh lemon juice and then just quickly good them with the sauce and serve it with pasta or over a roasted piece of fish (we had it over cod).

Gumbeaux Gal said...

I was going to say that you should blanch them and add to a pasta, but mia beat me to it.

My treatment involves pasta water, meyer lemons, good olive oil, thyme, mint, salt and cracked pepper.

Anonymous said...

I know Chinese restaurants often saute pea greens, and also aware that some are larger than others, with the larger ones being more mature and containing more fiber.

Guess one way would be to saute and add some vegetables? Or better yet, find those magazines breadchick mentioned! ;)

Let us know what you decide to do, okay? Tx!