Tag: Peas

red cabbage salad with green peas

cabbage peas salads red cabbage

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This is a recipe that I adapted from one that my friend Colleen emailed me. Hers used radicchio and cider vinegar, but I didn’t have any radicchio—so this salad was born! Both recipes have peas in common, though! If you happen to have access to those fantastic fresh peas from the Valley right now, use them—or if you’re lucky enough to have frozen them last summer, make sure and use them! The frozen ones in the store are mushy compared with frozen Alaskan peas—ours taste sweet, delicious, and fresh, even out of the freezer. See the “peas” section for a method to process them for freezing.

If you don’t have red cabbage, you can use green cabbage, too—it’s pretty, still, with the different colors of green. Since this is a wilted salad, but the cabbage still retains some of its crunch, it’s great as a leftover salad the next day. I love eating this salad as a side to an avocado toast with balsamic vinaigrette and pickled red onions.

vinaigrette

¼ cup white wine vinegar
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon sea salt or kosher salt
¼ teaspoon freshly-ground pepper
1-2 tablespoons honey

salad

½ a head of red cabbage, sliced very thin
1 ½ cups fresh or frozen green peas
½ bunch of scallions, sliced thin (or substitute ¼ cup of minced red or yellow onion)

1. Put the cabbage and scallions into a large salad bowl.
2. Combine all vinaigrette ingredients in a small saucepan. Bring to a simmer to dissolve the honey and salt. Add the peas to the vinaigrette and cook for 1-2 minutes (maybe a bit longer if the peas are still frozen), just long enough to warm and cook the peas a little bit. Don’t cook them so long that they start to turn grayish-green; this is just to infuse them with the vinaigrette and soften the skins a little.
3. Pour the hot dressing and peas over the top of the cabbage and toss to mix well. The dressing will wilt the cabbage a little. Taste and add more salt, pepper, and honey as needed to make a vibrant salad.

fresh peas with scallions

scallions peas

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This is hardly a recipe, just a description. But with fresh peas from the market, it’s so perfectly delicious as a side with almost any meal.

fresh peas
scallion greens, sliced thin
extra-virgin olive oil
sea salt or kosher salt

Boil the peas for just a minute in salted water until tender, then drain them and toss with scallion greens, olive oil and salt to taste.

spicy green peas with onion and ginger

ginger peas indian

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I’m sure you have recipes you know and love for your fresh peas—but here’s one of our favorites, Indian-style. It’s from Neelam Batra’s 1,000 Indian Recipes. It’s great with the spicy roasted cauliflower with red peppers and cumin and some brown basmati rice… you could even do the beet pilaf with dill if you’re feeling inspired. If not, though, just use the pilaf recipe to get perfectly-cooked plain brown basmati. The peas also go very nicely with the red lentils with zucchini (or substitute broccoli for the zucchini).
1 tablespoon canola or olive oil
2 tablespoons peeled and minced fresh ginger root
2 fresh green jalepeno peppers, halved lengthwise, seeded with a spoon, and minced
1 teaspoon whole cumin seeds
1 large onion, cut in half lengthwise and thinly sliced
1 teaspoon ground coriander
½ teaspoon ground cumin
¼ teaspoon cayenne, or less if you prefer it mild
¼ teaspoon ground turmeric
1 teaspoon sea salt or kosher salt, or more to taste
1 pound fresh or frozen peas
1 teaspoon mango powder (optional)
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
½ teaspoon garam masala
1. Heat the oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium high heat and add the ginger, jalapenos, and cumin seeds; they should sizzle on contact with the hot oil. Quickly add the onion and cook until golden, about 5 minutes.
2. Add the coriander, cumin, cayenne, turmeric and salt, then mix in the peas and cook, stirring until all the juices evaporate and the spices cling to the peas. Mix in the mango powder, if using, and lemon juice, sprinkle the garam masala on top, and serve.

processing peas to freeze

freezing peas

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I buy 10 pound bags of peas in the summer, boil them VERY briefly and then freeze them to eat all winter. They are so much sweeter and have such better texture than the peas you can get frozen at the grocery store! See the note in Step 2, though, about how NOT to overcook them when you thaw them.

large bag of fresh peas
sea salt or kosher salt

1. Plunge batches of peas into boiling, salted water for 45 seconds. Scoop the peas out into cold ice water, drain, put in ziploc freezer bags, and freeze.
2. When thawing them, it’s very important to remember that the peas have already been cooked, and at their peak of tenderness. So, if you’re taking them out of the freezer, don’t add them to a soup or stew until the last minute—they will overcook if you’re not careful. To cook them, I pop them, frozen solid in a brick, into a pot of boiling water, and fish them out as soon just as they are melted apart from each other. Just keep tasting them until they are done to your liking. It won’t take very long—just a few seconds!