Tag: peas

Pea, Snowpea, Almond and Feta Salad

.Reading time 1 minute.

Serves: 4

What a great salad!

190 calories a serve, really colourful and bursting with flavour.

This is a real win.

From Toby and Georgia Puttock’s book The Chef gets Healthy, this is a great salad. I mean, who doesn’t love peas – and snowpeas – and with the toasted almonds and some feta?!

Try it and you’ll understand why!

(Slightly adapted to our steam/microwave lives.)

Ingredients

150gm snowpeas, ends trimmed
150gm frozen (baby) peas
½ red onion, thinly sliced
50gm reduced fat feta
30gm flaked almonds, toasted
Handful of basil leaves, roughly torn
1 ½ tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
2 tsp red wine vinegar
Sea salt and cracked black pepper
Handful of rocket or watercress

Method

  1. Blanch – steam, boil, microwave –the snowpeas and peas until bright green and tender crisp; drain and refresh with cold water. Drain again.
  2. Put the snowpeas, peas, onion, feta, almonds, basil, olive oil and vinegar in a large bowl and toss to combine, Season and carefully toss through the rocket or watercress.
  3. Enjoy.

Rockpool’s Peas with slow-cooked egg

.Reading time 2 minutes.

Serves: 6 – 8

Nat and I served this as a side to Rick Stein’s wonderful Escalopes of Salmon with a Champagne and Chive sauce; we also served Rockpool’s twice cooked, thick, hand cut chips.

Rather than use tinned peas, we used frozen peas which would have reduced the intensity of the pea taste; next time, I’ll make the effort and use tinned peas. Also, rather than do the egg in a sous vide, we poached it for a few minutes.

(I’ve typed up the recipe this way, though by all means, if you have 2 hours, place your egg in the sous vide at 60c and gloat.)

This is a really effective side with no end to variations; lardons of jamon, stewed tomatoes, pecorino cheese shaved on top, mascarpone, whatever.

Better still, this dish shows you give a damn about serving dinner, complete right to the edges and sides.

Serve with steak, a braise or fish and show your guests that tinned peas didn’t in fact die in the Great War!

300g tinned green peas, drained, liquid reserved
1 egg
¼ c extra virgin olive oild (plus extra for drizzling)
1 French shallot (eschalot)
2 anchovy fillets
1 garlic clove
½ dry long red chilli
180ml white chicken stock
lemon juice to taste
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 tbsp chiffonade flat leaf parsley, plus extra to serve

Method

  1. Poach your egg so the yolk will run.
  2. Heat the oil in a frying pan over a medium-low heat. Add the shallot, anchovy, garlic and chilli and sauté until soft and sweet. Add the peas, 2 ½ tbsp. of reserved pea liquid and the chicken stock.
  3. Flatten the peas with the back of a spoon and cook until they are soft, the liquid has reduced and the mixture has thickened. Season to taste with the lemon juice and salt and pepper. Stir through the parsley and spoon onto a serving plate.
  4. Very carefully crack the egg on top. Season to taste, drizzle with some olive oil and sprinkle with the extra parsley.

Nat’s Keema (Lamb (or beef) mince with peas)

.Reading time 3 minutes.

Serves: 4

So we have a new rule in the house.

If we find a recipe though it needs a solid change in method or ingredients, we are calling it our own. So introducing Nat’s Keema: a beef (or lamb) mince masala with peas.

We originally had this dish at a fabulous local Indian restaurant a fortnight ago and promised to reproduce it if only because it was a mince recipe; mince falling only slightly behind brisket and pork shoulder/belly in the genius stakes in our opinion.

Though there is a surprising lack of such recipes online for Keema, including on P-interest (Pinterest) which has become a bit of a destination where we swap recipes whilst at work.

The ingredients in the original recipe we finally sourced were fairly right though the method was shot.

We regrouped, changed tact, quadrupled the peas (because they are amazing) and here you have it.

It won’t change the world though it is a damn comfortable mince, low calorie and pretty special for a Monday dinner and lunch the next day. And the mushrooms are a hit.

Enjoy! (And thank Nat later…)

Ingredients

1kg extra lean beef mince (or lamb mince as per the original)
4 green chilies, diced
2 handfuls of fresh coriander
6 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbsp freshly grated ginger
20 small mushrooms, diced
2 onions, sliced
500gm frozen peas
400gm fresh tomatoes, diced (a few tomatoes)
4 tsp garam masala
2 tsp sea salt
1 tsp turmeric
2 tsp cumin seeds
2 tbsp vegetable oil

Method

  1. Heat the oil in the pan and add the onion and the garlic; cook until the onions are soft and starting to become golden.
  2. Add the mince and cook down until the liquid has evaporated and the meat can start to brown.
  3. Add the tomatoes, ginger, salt, turmeric and chilli. Mash the tomatoes and other ingredients to add a shine to the meat.
  4. Add the mushrooms, lower the heat, add a cup of water and cook down for 45 minutes until the mushrooms are soft and cooked through. Add more water if necessary and stir regularly until the liquid evaporates.
  5. Add the garam masala, coriander and peas. Cook for a few minutes more, stirring until the peas are cooked through.
  6. Season, spice it up if you want and serve.

Spaghetti with crushed peas, mint and pancetta

.Reading time 2 minutes.
FullSizeRender (6)
Beautiful colours.

Serves: 4 – 6

I found this recipe in the 2015 Gourmet Traveller Annual Cookbook.

Having not had pasta for months, I had a real hankering; keen to cook something that wasn’t entirely outrageous and thus setting me back two weeks of walking and running, this recipe was it and what a great recipe it is.

It is one of those nice and simple, nobody is going be upset, Sunday lunch pastas. It’s clean, fresh and children friendly. It certainly looks the part with a big salad or two and some crusty bread.

Yum.

Ingredients

400gm dried spaghetti
50ml olive oil
80gm mild pancetta, diced
¼ onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
50ml dry white wine
150ml chicken stock
250gm frozen peas
½ c coarsely torn mint, plus extra to serve
Finely grated pecorino pepato to serve

Method

  1. Cook pasta in a large saucepan of boiling water until al dente. Drain and return to the pan with a tablespoon or two of the pasta water.
  2. Meanwhile, heat oil in large frying pan over a medium-high heat, add pancetta and cook until it starts to crisp (3 – 4 minutes). Add onions and garlic and sauté until tender (3 – 4 minutes). Deglaze the pan with wine, add stock and bring to a simmer. Add peas, simmer until tender (2 – 3 minutes), remove from the heat, season to taste and coarsely crush the peas.
  3. Toss pea mixture through pasta, season again if necessary and serve hot with pecorino pepato and extra mint.

Prawns, peas and epic (prawn) oil

.Reading time 3 minutes.

Serves: 2

Sitting with my mate Leo waiting for a haircut (that never actually eventuated because they didn’t notice us for 15 minutes and when they did, told us they had no room for us until 4pm; and Leo doesn’t even have hair!) and flicking through Men’s Health.

And among photos of men with incredible abs, photos of huge watches and photos of men with incredible abs wearing huge watches running through parks, was this recipe.

Except for the oil, it is super healthy and in any event, there isn’t much oil left after you reduce it all and it is olive oil, so it’s goodish anyway.

It can be a little unidirectional in its otherwise excellent flavour – we’re talking prawns and half a kilo of peas here – so go all in with the flavour; the herbs, lemon, good crack of pepper.

Ingredients

500gm of prawns, shelled and deveined (shells/heads retained)
½ cup olive oil
3 garlic cloves finely chopped
1 long red chilli, seeds removed, finely chopped
¼ bunch parsley, chopped
250ml fish or vegetable stock
500gm peas (frozen baby peas is what I used)
1 onion sliced
Handful fresh dill roughly chopped
Handful fresh mint roughly chopped
Pinch of salt
Pinch of pepper
Juice of half a lemon

Method

  1. Add oil to a pan over a medium heat. Stir in the prawn shells/heads and cook for 5 or so minutes. Add the garlic and cook until fragrant and slightly golden, before storing in the chilli and the parsley for 1 minute. Remove from the heat, allow to cool, then strain the oil, discarding the solids. Do not wash the pan.
  2. In a small saucepan, bring the stock to boil then turn to medium and cook the peas for 3 – 5 minutes until tender. Strain the peas, keep the stock.
  3. In the same pan as used before, on a medium heat, add the onions and allow to caramelise for 8 – 10 minutes. Add the prawns and cook for 2 minutes until tender.
  4. Stir in the peas for a minute before folding in half the dill and mint and half the stock; you want it to be a lose mix but not soupy.
  5. Add 2 tablespoons of the epic oil (prawn oil). Season with salt and pepper, squeeze in the lemon juice and serve, garnished with the remaining herbs.