If there’s one green vegetable I can always get my kids to eat, it’s peas! Those sweet, plump little pearls burst with flavor and always add vibrant color to our plates. Throughout the year we rely on frozen peas, but it is truly a delight to enjoy freshly harvested peas in the spring when they are in season. Peas should be picked right before cooking because their sugar content quickly turns to starch, depleting their beloved sweet flavor. For this reason, most grocery stores do not stock fresh shelling peas for their incompatible shelf life, relying solely on canned and frozen options. It can seem almost foreign to find peas still in their pods and wonder if you should eat that too. If you’ve never had the chance to shell fresh peas from their pod and taste them in their peak growing season then you are in for a treat.
There are three different types of peas: shelling peas, snow peas, and sugar snap peas. Shelling peas, also known as garden or English peas, will have long green pods with large swollen peas inside. The pod should be removed by pinching off the end and pulling the string down like a zipper. The pod will then easily open to remove the peas inside. Use them as a fresh contrast to rich dishes like creamy risotto, pasta alfredo, chicken pot pie, or bacon fried rice. The pods of shelling peas are waxy and tough, so they are best discarded or added to vegetable stock.
Unlike their cousin, snow peas and sugar snap peas can be eaten whole. Their pods are sweet, crisp, and less fibrous, with a shorter, crescent shape to them. Snow peas are flatter with the smallest peas inside, while sugar snap peas are plumper with slightly larger peas inside. Both work wonderfully in stir fries, with snow peas commonly being used in Asian cuisines. One of my most memorable meals with sugar snap peas was at The Range in Santa Margarita. The dish was a classic comfort meal of roast chicken with mashed potatoes, gravy, and lightly sautéed sugar snap peas, carrots, and broccolini. The combination of flavors was exquisite. You can count on having English peas and sugar snap peas in your Talley Farms Box to enjoy during their prime this spring!
