Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Stir fried snow pea shoots


When I started planning and planting a vegetable garden a few months ago, I knew there was a lot to learn. I'm not a complete novice in this area although my previous efforts were centred on spring and summer plants rather than vegetables that develop slowly throughout autumn and winter. It's been rewarding to harvest and cook small crops of kale, bok choy and pak choy yet slightly frustrating when things haven't worked out as they should (a few mistakes have been made along the way which I'm happy to count as part of the learning experience). An added bonus of expanding my gardening knowledge has been discovering other valuable information about certain vegetables that was previously unbeknownst to me


Many vegetable plants serve multiple purposes – the leaves of a beetroot plant can be cooked and eaten as well as the beetroot bulb that is more well known in culinary circles. That's a fairly common example I was already aware of. A new one for me was that the leaves of brussel sprout and broccoli plants are also edible greens. Prior to this discovery, I had been lamenting that my broccoli and brussel sprout plants may not have been planted early enough in the season – I'm looking at these plants in a new light now, at least I'll get a feed from their greens if the vegetables don’t mature.


I was also thrilled to learn recently that certain sections of snow pea vines can be eaten and are commonly consumed in some Asian cuisines. The growth on the vines of my snow peas has been phenomenal and now extends well over the boundaries of the supports I originally put in place for them (that was one of my learning experiences). While I was desperately hunting around for a solution to my bending vines I stumbled across ways to cook snow pea shoots/tips. It was a win-win situation – the wayward vines could be given a light prune and the clippings cooked up as a side dish.


It was suggested that the shoots are best enjoyed stir-fried with a little oil, I was happy to give them this treatment as I've been savouring all of my latest home grown produce in the simplest possible ways. I read about cooking snow pea shoots in a few different places but it was these two posts on Serious Eats I referred to when trying to work out the right sections to use and preparation methods. I was cautious to chop off the many curly tendrils as the texture of them was likened to dental floss which didn't sound particularly appetising.


After the snow pea shoots were trimmed of tendrils, washed and spun dry in a salad spinner it was only a matter of giving them a quick stir-fry in the wok with a bit of oil. I was so concerned that I was going to overcook them that they ended up being slightly underdone and a bit on the crunchy side. The shoots had a very similar taste to snow peas which we really enjoyed. Michael of where's the beef  posted a recipe for Chilli lime tamarind tofu last week which I felt would be a perfect partner for our simple greens. The tofu was easy to prepare and full of bold spicy flavours, the only change I made to this was to add some garlic to the marinade - it was a delicious tofu dish which I'll be happy to revisit again.

16 comments:

  1. I enjoy snow pea shoots, though I think the ones I tend to have are the younger ones. Also very happy to see my tofu dish doing the rounds! :D

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    1. Thanks for posting that wonderful tofu dish Leaf, I'm so glad that indy and Michael brought it to my attention! I found that the chewiest shoots were the ones that were thinnest and in closest proximity to the tendrils - perhaps I'll do some more research before cooking up some more.

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  2. Your vegie garden sounds impressive - sounds like you will be having lots of great eating from it - love teh sound of the snowpea sprouts with the tofu

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    1. Thanks Johanna, the vegie garden isn't doing too badly but I'm starting to look forward to warmer weather when plants grow so much faster.

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  3. Loved reading your gardening tales, and your veggie garden certainly sounds amazing. I like to do some vegetable gardening too each summer, but I'm not a natural green thumb so it is always a lot of trial and error. :) Your snow pea shoots look incredible. It's lunchtime here and my mouth is watering for that stir-fry.

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    1. Thanks Vaishali, I'm not really a green thumb either so it's been trial and error here too as well as a bit of reading to get me on the right track.

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  4. You are turning into quite the gardener! I love the pictures of your plants, and your learning about alternate uses of the parts that are often forgotten. Stir fried snow pea shoots sound delicious.

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    1. Thanks Kari, I have a lot of great gardeners in my family so I don't consider myself in their league just yet. It has certainly been eye opening to discover all these plant parts that are edible!

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  5. I am seriously impressed - not only that you have a garden, but you're getting all this good stuff out of it in the winter too. The shoots look really, really good.

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    1. Thanks Joey, hopefully next winter will be a even better crop now that I have worked out which plants are easiest to grow and give biggest yields, etc.

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  6. just mouthwatering....looks delicious!

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    1. Thanks Kalyan for your lovely comment and for stopping by!

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  7. Thanks for sharing.
    I'm growing them too but their stems are too thin. Did I get a wrong kind of snow pea seeds or else? Can you advise.

    Thanks,
    Ben

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    1. Hi Ben, I'm certainly no expert in the garden and am not familiar with different varieties of snow peas. The stems on my snow pea plants started out very thin, they didn't begin to thicken until the plants grew to a decent height and started to flower. Perhaps your plants are still fairly young? Hope that helps!

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  8. Fascinating! I love how more than one part of a plant can be eaten. The snow pea bits look like something I would definitely enjoy!

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    1. Thanks Sandy, I love finding out new information about edible plants as there is just so much to know. If you enjoy snow peas, you would enjoy these. I believe bags of them can be purchased from Asian grocers although I haven't seen any in the ones I shop at.

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