It’s pea season! The peas are ready to be picked, which means our C.S.A. sent us home with snap peas, snow peas, and even something called pea tendrils!
I had never heard of pea tendrils before, but as it turns out, the entire pea plant is edible – not just the peas! The pea tendrils in our share appeared to be from our snow peas, and were beautiful long stalks with purple flowers and curly thin stalks at the top.
I was making a huge salad with all of our lettuce and thought I would chop and add some of the pea tendrils as a garnish.
I also wanted to taste the pea tendrils cooked, so I looked up a recipe and found that the age-old “cook in olive oil with garlic and salt” is an excellet method for preparing pea tendrils. You’ll see my cooked tendrils on the right and the raw ones for the salad on the top left.
How did the pea tendrils go over with my crew?
7 year-old: Oh mommy, I LOVE them! They’re the best ever! They’re a 5!
4 year-old: I don’t want to try it! Ew! (Cries)
Daddy: Tastes good, but the texture is a little too “twiggy” for me.
Me: I’ve decided everything tastes good sautéed in olive oil and garlic. I agree with my husband that some of the stalks are a little too tough. I think I might need to cook them longer. They were actually a little easier to eat raw, and really made my salad look pretty with the purple flowers.
My 7 year-old loved the cooked pea tendrils so much that she kept coming back to the plate over and over to take more. Every now and then, she would complain that she couldn’t swallow it, and would spit it out (I suppose that was her way of saying it was twiggy). Even so, she loved the flavor and kept coming back for more. So while I will certainly cook her more pea tendrils, I also will try cooking more types of greens in olive oil and garlic, since I think that’s what really appealed to her.
As for me, I’ll eat pea tendrils again, but if you are familiar with them and know how to deal with the toughness, please share your ideas! I think they’d taste even better if I could get them just a little more tender.
So, what new food did you try this week?
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