Peas, in my opinion, are a much under rated vegetable – apart from just tasting great on their own with a knob of butter, there is so much else you can do with them!
So, here’s a few recipes for the price (per kg bag) . . .
- Aldi £0.94p
- Asda £1.19
- Tesco £1.30
- Morrisons £1.33
Pea Soup:
- 1 onion or shallot chopped finely
- 400 g frozen peas
- 1 -2 potatoes, peeled and chopped
- 800 mls stock
- crème fraiche or cream.
Fry the onion in a saucepan with a little butter till soft. Add the potato and stock. Bring to the boil and simmer for about 20 minutes. Add the peas, bring back to the boil and simmer for another 5 -10 minutes or so till all soft. Blend till smooth and serve with a little cream.
Above is the basic – but you can play around with it – adding (not altogether!) :
- some garlic with the onion
- some mint with the stock
- some pesto at the end
- shredded ham
- watercress and/or spinach
- soup pasta
Pea Risotto (you’ve done this before but here’s the recipe again (save you looking back!)
- 60g / 2 oz Arborio/ risotto rice
- ½ small onion
- 1 chopped garlic
- 150g peas
- ½ glass Dry white wine (don’t worry if no wine, just make up with extra stock)
- ½ pint hot chicken or vegetable stock
- 1 Teaspoon butter
- 1 Teaspoon olive oil
- A little cream or crème fraiche
- 30g/1oz grated parmesan cheese
Melt the butter in a large pan, add the onion and gently sweat for about 10 mins until really soft. Meanwhile, put 50g peas into a food processor with a ladleful of stock and whizz until completely puréed.
Stir the rice into the onion, increase heat to medium and sizzle the rice for 1 min. Pour in the wine, then bubble and stir until completely absorbed. Continue cooking like this, adding a ladleful of stock at a time, and stirring continuously until the rice is tender and has a good creamy consistency – this will take 20-30 mins. Stir in the puréed peas, remaining (cooked) peas, Parmesan and cream, then turn off the heat and leave to stand for a few mins. Give the risotto a final stir and spoon into shallow bowls. NB you could add some chopped ham if you liked, too.
And, finally, if you just want a little snackette:
Pea, mint and chilli dip
- 200grams of cooked peas
- 50 grams of yogurt
- juice of 1/2 lemon
- 1/2 teasp cumin (to taste)
- chopped mint leaves (or even a small spoonful of mint sauce)
- chopped chilli to taste (don’t forget – most of the supermarkets now sell frozen chopped herbs so less wastage)
Blend all of the above to a smooth paste and serve with toast/pitta bread and/or batons of carrots, cucumber.
That’s 750 grams of peas for 3 recipes and you’ve still got some in the bag to use as veg!
Ailsa cooks for One 