Garden peas

How to store Garden peas

Keep in the fridge in their pods. To enjoy the best of their natural sweet flavour, eat within a day or two.

Prep & Cooking tips

Shelling peas can be a meditative task, for anything less than a kilo. If it is speed rather than enlightenment that you're after, then split the pile in half and race someone. The loser has to put the pods in the compost bin. Split the pods and thumb the peas into a bowl; if you're feeling frugal, you can save the freshest-looking pods for a thrifty soup.

Once podded, you can snack on them raw. Or, they take only a minute or two to boil, and can be thrown into a curry, soup or stew to cook right at the end.

They needn’t always be boiled; they’ll cook swiftly sautéed in a little butter or as part of a stir-fry. Mint, spring onions, crispy bacon, braised lettuce and boiled potatoes are all natural flavour partners. A substantial soup can be made from the pods, but will need to be passed through a sieve or mouli to remove any stringiness.

Easy ideas

1. Stir through pasta

Enjoy garden peas in any number of pasta dishes, stirring through towards the end of cooking to keep them from going mushy. One of our summer veg favourites is this asparagus, mushroom and garden peas carbonara.

2. BBQ

Garden peas are a really good BBQ veg. Still in their pods, throw the garden peas on the BBQ for 5-6 minutes, turning halfway. The pods will char and gently steam and cook the peas inside, while absorbing the smoky flavours of the BBQ. As soon as they're cool enough to handle, pod them and enjoy!

Goes well with

Mint

Spring onions

Crispy bacon

Braised lettuce

Boiled potatoes