green peas

Lemongrass Green Pea Stir-Fry

by

(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr)

This surprising meal is repurposed from a side dish, tweaked, and streamlined.  The result is a sweet pea-and-onion stir-fry that goes fantastic on rice.  Served with a green it’s a full meal without being heavy and is pretty easy to prepare.

The only challenge is finding the lemongrass and preparing it.  You can either chop it fine or chop it in a blender with water (used then to dry-sauté).  Lemongrass does not cook like onions to and still stays woody when they’ve long ago softened.

Makes 4 servings

Ingredients:

  • 2 trimmed stalks of lemon grass.
  • 1 large yellow onion, chopped fine.
  • 4 Tbsp soy sauce
  • 4 Tbsp lime juice
  • 1 Tbsp maple syrup (optional)
  • 4 cups frozen or fresh green peas

Preparation:

  1. Mix the soy sauce, lime juice, and maple syrup in a separate bowl.
  2. Add shredded lemongrass and about 2 tbsp of water to a blender and use it to chop the lemongrass.  If you can get finely shredded lemongrass skip this part.
  3. Dry-sauté the onion in the lemongrass-water mixture, adding water as needed until onion softens.
  4. Add all other ingredients, sauté until the sauce reduces and the peas are coated.

– Steve

Recipe: Curried Green Peas and Yams

by

My latest creation – a curried meal of green peas and yams.  it came out nice and tasty, though I think I need to slightly reduce the curry poweder, and I may add soy sauce for more depth of taste, and/or a tomato for depth of taste and a thicker sauce.

You can also scale this recipe – at it’s core each serving is one cup of peas, one cup of diced yams, a little under 2 tsp of curry powder, a dash of cayenne pepper, a dash of black pepper, and 1/8 tsp of salt.

Ingredients:

  • 4 cups of green peas (frozen or thawed)
  • 4 cups of diced yams (depending on the yams available, this could take 2 or take 4-5).
  • 2 tbsp curry powder
  • 1/8 tsp cayenne pepper, ground.
  • 1/8 tsp ground black pepper
  • ½ tsp salt
  • 2 tbsp lime juice
  • Clinatro to garnish

Directions

  1. Dice the yam and place them in a lidded pot with a thin layer of water on the bottom. Bring to boil and simmer with lid cover, stirring and adding water as needed to keep the bottom fully covered. There should be enough to really steam the yams as opposed to boil them.
  2. When the yams start to soften (about 5-7 minutes) add everything else. Mix thoroughly, adding water if needed to mix the spiced. Blend so everything is coated – heat through.
  3. Serve with cilantro.

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.musehack.com/, publishes books on career and culture at http://www.informotron.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.