Apr

Pea Shoot Salad

I wanted to keep my first experience with pea shoots simple, and went with a recipe that comes from the book, Grow Cook Eat: A Food Lover’s Guide to Vegetable Gardening. As usual, I didn’t follow the recipe exactly, and left out the vinegar. The recipe given serves 4. I just threw a bunch of pea shoots on a plate, drizzled them with a little of the dressing, and shaved the parmesan with a veggie peeler right on top of the whole thing. One word of caution — use the dressing very sparingly. The flavor of the pea shoots is delicate, and easily overpowered by the lemon and garlic. I found as little as 1/2 teaspoon to be plenty. Any more than that, and you won’t be able to taste the greens. I also found myself shaving additional parmesan into the salad, but I’m a pig when it comes to any kind of cheese.

1/2 teaspoon lemon zest
2 teaspoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 small clove garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon white balsamic or white wine vinegar
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
sea salt
4 to 6 cups lightly packed pea shoots
2-ounce piece parmesan
Freshly ground pepper

It’s official, I like pea shoots. Because they are so simple to grow, and don’t take up a lot of space, I plan to make them a winter mainstay on my grow light setup. I think I’m going to try this gorgeous Tofu Soup with Pea Shoots and Radishes next.