Pea Shoots or Pea Vine

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This is a hint that I found on the Harmony Valley website, "The secret to cooking them is to trim the ends to where the stems begin to be tender and chopping them into 2 inch, or smaller, pieces." I did chop them into small pieces, but failed to remove the tougher woody stalks. It kind of all looks alike, so its easy to think all of it will cook OK. This is not the case! We wound up having to pick the tough little sticks out of our pasta. This is not something you want to experience. It gives you a rather negative feeling about the whole pea vine thing.

I recommend the following recipe, but be sure to do a better job trimming the pea shoots than I did.

Pasta Carbonara with Pea Shoots

1/2 pound pasta of your choice
3-4 slices bacon
2 large cloves garlic, minced
4 cups pea shoots, including leaves and tendrils, roughly chopped (1 bunch, trimmed)
Salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste
2 large eggs
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese, divided
1/2 cup chopped fresh Italian parsley

Cook the pasta according to directions in a large port of boiling salted water.

Cook the bacon in a large skillet until crisp. Remove bacon and all but 2 tablespoons of the bacon fat. Add garlic to the bacon fat and cook for a few seconds. Be sure not to let it get brown. Stir in pea shoots and cook until leaves wilt, about 1-2 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Whisk eggs in a bowl. Add nutmeg and 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese.

Drain pasta, reserving some pasta water. Whisk 1/4 cup of the hot pasta water into the egg mixture. Add the hot pasta to the mixture and toss to coat.

Add the pasta to the skillet with the pea shoots and toss, adding more pasta water if it seems to dry. Crumble the bacon and toss into the pasta. Sprinkle with the fresh parsley and the remaining Parmesan cheese.

Adapted from: the San Franciso Chronicle

Comments

Miss B said…
I'm a new CSA member & follow your lovely blog. We had the very same experience with pea shoot pasta! It wasn't pretty. I tried to simmer the next batch to cook down the woody stalks & basically boiled the flavor right out of them. Oh well. Try, try again. Thanks for your great blog!
June 4, 2009 at 9:33 PM
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