What to Eat: Food that’s good for your health, pocket and plate

Peas, broad beans, mangetouts and sugarsnaps

By way of native vegetable delights, it’s hard to trump summery garden peas, fresh from the pod, or rival their crunchy green sweetness. New broad beans, which crop in the UK in late spring and summer, are a great pleasure too, offering that green pea flavour all wrapped up in a velvety, floury texture.

To get the best from fresh seasonal peas and broad beans, you have to taste them before their sugar starts turning to starch. Look out for pea pods that are smooth, vibrantly green and plump. Avoid those that are puckered and fading towards khaki, or that look matt or webbed. These will be rather elderly specimens, which means that the peas within will be mealy. Broad bean pods should look well filled and stiff, not undulating and floppy. Broad beans are at their best when they are small and new, and you can just about get away without slipping them out of their inner skins. But if you are using more mature broad beans, these skins will have toughened up and will interfere with the taste of the bean. Peeling – best done by plunging them in boiling water for a few minutes – is essential.

For most people, garden peas are a stalwart, workaday freezer staple that comes in a packet, not in a pod. But there’s no need to be sniffy about frozen peas – or indeed broad beans for that matter. In fact, there is a lot to be said for them. They do, however, have a more slippery texture than the fresh sort – a consequence, perhaps, of the fact that they are blanched (plunged briefly in boiling water) before freezing. They tend to have firmer skins and a more one-dimensional sweetness than the fresh equivalent. These characteristics make them a very different animal from peas or broad beans fresh from the pod. When buying frozen peas, choose the small sort (petits pois) for preference as they are generally sweeter and have more delicate skins than the larger ones. Broad beans freeze even better than peas: their flavour and texture is closer to the fresh ones. Once again though, go for small ones as the larger ones you get frozen in bulk can be tough.

While fresh British peas and broad beans are only seasonally available and not always easy to find, mangetout and sugarsnap peas are ubiquitous. Opinions are divided about the merits of these flat, pea-free, wholly edible pods. Some enjoy them, but not everyone appreciates their icing sugar-like crunch. If you get them fresh, British-grown mangetouts and sugarsnaps can be delicious. If you shop in farm shops and farmers’ markets, you may be lucky enough to find a brief supply of mangetouts and sugarsnaps, which are the vegetable equivalent of a packet of sweets in an edible wrapper.

But most mangetouts and sugarsnaps are imported from Africa, Asia or Latin America, and despite all those supermarket guarantees that read ‘air-freighted for freshness’, they often have a palpable bitterness to them that can make them actively unpleasant. Imported mangetouts may come to us via an elaborate cold chain, but keeping a vegetable cold and looking good during its long journey is one thing; retaining its sweet freshness is quite another.

Things to do with peas, broad beans, mangetouts and sugarsnaps

• Sizzle nigella seeds (kalonji) in coconut oil, or other oil, until they pop, add a small handful of fresh curry leaves, sea salt, fresh or frozen peas, mangetouts or sugarsnaps and stir-fry until they start to soften.

• For an easy, pleasing soup, soften onion in unsalted butter, add frozen peas, sea salt, pepper and stock, bring to the boil, then blitz the soup together with a large handful of fresh mint leaves. Frozen broad beans make a heartier, if less elegant, version.

• Broad beans make an interesting and authentic substitute for chickpeas in no-soak falafel recipes. If you haven’t got a food processor, boil frozen broad beans for a couple of minutes until soft and bash up using a potato masher, then add the other falafel ingredients, form into falafel shapes and chill well before frying.

• Braise peas or broad beans in unsalted butter with chopped spring onions and crunchy lettuce hearts, then finish off with fresh chervil, mint or basil.

• Make a pea and bacon risotto along the lines of the Venetian risi e bisi (rice and peas).

• Raw peas, blanched broad beans and mangetouts or sugarsnaps – the latter two finely sliced horizontally – add colour and crunch to soft-textured salads based on grains such as quinoa, cracked wheat and brown rice.

Are peas, broad beans, mangetouts and sugarsnaps good for me?

Peas, broad beans, mangetouts and sugarsnaps vary in their nutritional make-up, but collectively are a very good source of vitamin C, which supports the immune system; vitamin K, which is needed for healthy bones; beta-carotene, zeaxanthin and lutein, which are important for the eyes; and certain B vitamins, which are vital for the nervous system. They also contain useful minerals, such as potassium, which helps regulate blood pressure, and soluble fibre, which slows down the rate at which sugar is absorbed into the bloodstream. Being legumes (pulses) as well as a vegetable, they contain more protein than many vegetables and make a great storage food if dried.

The frozen food industry is always keen to improve the marketing profile of its products and peas have become something of a standard-bearer for the argument that frozen vegetables can be healthier than fresh. This argument is based on the observation that peas deteriorate rapidly after picking and that frozen peas retain more of their nutrients than ‘fresh’ peas that may have been hanging around in the shops for a few days. There is some industry-funded research to support this point of view. Some processors boast that their peas are frozen just two and a half hours after harvesting, whereas fresh peas take much longer to appear in shops. Following this logic to its conclusion, there is no point bothering with fresh peas as they will be nutritionally inferior. Obviously, peas, like many other fresh vegetables, do go downhill after picking, but this is no reason to abandon the fresh article entirely, since fresh peas offer a very different eating experience to frozen. The trick is to look out for fresh peas in really tip-top condition and then eat them straight away.

How are peas, broad beans, mangetouts and sugarsnaps grown?

Britain is the largest producer of fresh garden peas in Europe. Most of the peas we eat come from growers on the east coast of England and Scotland, under contract to frozen food companies.

Peas and broad beans grow in open fields and are usually planted in drills. If they are to be frozen, they are taken to a factory where they are podded, blanched, then rapidly blast-frozen.

In spring and summer, mangetouts and sugarsnaps are widely grown by small-scale market gardens selling through farmers’ markets and farm shops. The rest of the year, they are imported, so very little is known about growing methods or the conditions of the workers. For more equitably produced imported peas and mangetouts, look out for those with a Fairtrade label, usually from Kenya.

Are peas, broad beans, sugarsnaps and mangetouts green choices?

Peas, broad beans, sugarsnaps and mangetouts belong to the legume family of plants, which means that they are able to make use of nitrogen in the atmosphere to enrich their protein content and ‘fix’ nitrogen in the soil. When the roots are left to decay, the nitrogen in the root becomes available to the following crop, acting as a natural fertilizer and reducing the need for synthetic ones made from rapidly depleting fossil fuels. Many farmers use peas as a ‘break’ crop to introduce nitrogen back into the soil as part of a rotation after four or five years of cereal or root vegetable cultivation.

Unless they are organic, pea growers have at their disposal a number of pesticides, although many increasingly emphasize more natural biological control methods such as pheromone traps to catch insects. Pesticide residues are rarely found in peas.

A minority of the peas and the majority of the mangetouts and sugarsnaps we eat are imported from thousands of miles away. Mangetouts from Guatemala, for instance, travel some 5,000 miles. Air-freighting vegetables raises major environmental issues (see GREEN BEANS AND RUNNER BEANS/Are green and runner beans a green choice?).

Where and when should I buy peas, broad beans, mangetouts and sugarsnaps?

UK-grown peas, broad beans, mangetouts and sugarsnaps are in season from May until September. Air-freighted imports are on sale all year round.

Will peas, broad beans, mangetouts and sugarsnaps break the bank?

Fresh peas never feel like the best deal, simply because they look so inconsequential when shelled, and broad beans can be even more disheartening, but neither is especially expensive and the price will reduce considerably when the British season is at its peak. Rather than using them as a bulk equivalent of the frozen sort, use them in small amounts, either raw or just lightly blanched in salads where their colour and texture will make their presence felt, or make them go further by cooking them lightly with other summer vegetables, such as new potatoes, young carrots and slim courgettes.

Don’t throw away empty pea pods. They can be used to make a vibrant soup, especially with a handful of summery green herbs; just make sure to sieve the soup to remove any fibrous bits. Broad bean pods are usually too coarse for this treatment, unless they are the extremely tender spring sort.

PEASE PLEASE

Peas have been an important crop in Britain for centuries, although they were mainly dried and used as a cheap, staple protein. Traditionally they were soaked then cooked with onion to make a versatile, filling, grey-green-coloured pudding, known as pease pudding, pease pottage or pease porridge, essentially a very thick soup that firms up in a mould. This cheap, filling food would be made using water, or ham stock and was commonly served with a bit of ham or bacon, and could be eaten in different ways, as the old nursery rhyme records:

Pease porridge hot, pease porridge cold,

Pease porridge in the pot, nine days old;

Some like it hot, some like it cold,

Some like it in the pot, nine days old.

In more recent times, mushy peas – dried, soaked marrowfat peas cooked until they collapse – have been considered as an iconic British food, the traditional accompaniment to the fish and chips first brought to the UK by Italian immigrants. With a much wider, fresher range of vegetables to choose from now than ever before, mushy peas have become a nostalgia food most appreciated by older generations, and since the tinned sort commonly contain added synthetic green colouring and sugar, increasingly peas have come to mean the fresh green garden sort, not their grey-green, rehydrated cousins.

In the 1980s, because peas were generally considered as a rather low-rent frozen vegetable, many chefs in Britain latched on to imported mangetouts as a more sophisticated choice and also because there was a supply 365 days a year, but they became something of a cliché. Now, the tables have been turned because mangetouts are widely regarded as both a dated and unimaginative choice, and fresh home-grown peas are seen as one of the most desirable vegetables that you can eat.

Peppers

Peppers are sweet, sunny, quintessentially Mediterranean vegetables. There are those who can find a use for peppers eaten raw, to give crunch to a salad or for dunking in a dip perhaps, but they make a much more compelling vegetable cooked, when their excess water has been driven off, their flesh has become meltingly soft and yielding, and their sweetness has concentrated and caramelized.

Multicoloured packs of peppers are a distraction. All peppers start off green when unripe, then they ripen and become yellow, orange or red, depending on variety and ripeness. Although green peppers have an honourable place in Middle Eastern cuisine where their slight bitterness is used to good effect, red peppers are otherwise preferable for most cooking purposes because at this stage they are at their ripest, sweetest and most flavourful. That familiar red/yellow/green pepper sprinkle we see on pizza toppings is all about supplying colour, not taste. Choose either green or red peppers, depending on the recipe, and don’t mix them.

Ubiquitous ‘bell’ peppers dominate our shelves. Retailers like these because they have an exceptionally long shelf life and consumers have appreciated them because they can languish in the domestic fridge for weeks without going bad, but they may well be the least exciting variety in pepperdom. The thinner-skinned, more elongated Romano or Ramiro peppers that have been introduced to add a bit of interest to the homogenous pepper category are closer to the genuine Mediterranean article and have a little bit more of the complexity you get in chilli peppers, minus the heat, and small green Padrone peppers have a likeably bitter taste.

As a consequence of how they are grown, the bell peppers that hog our shelves have a high water content that interferes with taste, so you have to work harder to get them to show any of that elusive Mediterranean promise. Rather than refrigerating them, leave them sitting on a windowsill or in a bright place at room temperature until they begin to wrinkle and dry out and darken in colour. Check them every day or two to make sure that they aren’t going bad. They may not look so ornamental, but the longer you mature them in this way, the better their flavour will be when cooked. Red peppers that have been roasted, skinned and then covered in oil deserve a place in any kitchen box of tricks.

Things to do with peppers

• Pulverize roasted red peppers and tomatoes in a blender along with toasted almonds and a little sherry or red wine vinegar and olive oil to make a Spanish romesco sauce to serve as a dip, or with fish or grilled meat.

• Finger-sized green Padrone peppers are great eaten whole when they are stir-fried in olive oil until they char and begin to wilt, then sprinkled with sea salt. A no-fuss but unusual nibble to serve with drinks.

• Brown chicken or rabbit legs in a shallow sauté or frying pan with onions and garlic, then add canned tomatoes, thin slices of roasted red peppers and a pinch of paprika and simmer, without a lid, until the meat is tender, in the style of French poulet Basquaise.

• Fleshy, syrupy roasted peppers and soft goat’s cheese make a succulent lunchtime sandwich.

• Anoint roasted red peppers with olive oil and chopped preserved lemons, green herbs and toasted pine kernels.

• A trickle of Middle Eastern pomegranate molasses gives roasted peppers a sour-sweet edge that enlivens grilled or fried fish.

Are peppers good for me?