During winter, when there are not many seasonal vegetables, green peas are a great addition to your daily diet. You can use it fresh, frozen or canned, as an independent side dish, or as a component of more complex and multi-component dishes.

Soups, salads, stews, vegetable stews - any dishes will become tastier if you add peas to them. Today we will tell you about its main properties and give 2 recipes that will help you diversify your home menu.

Why green peas are useful and harmful

Green peas contain a fairly high amount of protein by the standards of vegetables. Despite this, it is very well and quickly absorbed by the human body. Peas are rich in vitamins A, C, H. In addition, it contains about 25 minerals useful for the body, including phosphorus, potassium, sodium, and iron.

Healthy fats, sugars, amino acids, lecithin are just a small part of the chemical composition of green peas. The vitamin K it contains helps in the absorption of calcium and strengthens bones. Chloroform and antioxidants help prevent cancer by inhibiting the formation of cancer cells. Folic acid influences the growth, repair and metabolism of nerve cells by strengthening the nervous system.

Doctors recommend eating green peas to protect yourself from vitamin deficiency, kidney and liver problems. It helps to remove sand from the kidneys, support the cardiovascular system, prevent heart attacks and strokes, so it must be present in the diet of older people. In addition, peas help maintain skin tone and youthfulness, which is also important.

As with any product, green peas have contraindications. Do not get carried away with them in case of serious problems with the intestines, during an exacerbation and with indigestion. With gout and increased flatulence, its use should also be limited, but regular use of a small amount will not bring tangible harm, but, on the contrary, will improve your well-being.

Canned peas

Today, many doctors and nutritionists talk about the dangers of canned peas. Try not to buy a product that says "freeze-dried". It is recovered from dry peas by sublimation. This is not a natural product, but only close to it in appearance.

But even in the composition of ordinary canned peas, not everything is so smooth - it contains dyes, preservatives, a huge amount of sugar and salt, which makes this product quite dangerous for the body.

Even when choosing well-known manufacturers and the "pure" composition of the product, it is worth considering that the shelf life of such peas for some reason is not so short. Therefore, it is easier to preserve green peas on your own from young peas purchased in the summer season.

How to choose peas

In order for green peas to be beneficial, you need to choose them correctly. If you want to buy fresh peas, then focus only on young peas - elastic to the touch, best of all brain varieties. It should be of uniform color, pleasant green color, free from blotches and spots. It should be free of wormholes and visible damage, scratches and fractures; it should be tightly closed and appear juicy in appearance, not devoid of moisture.

If you choose frozen green peas, then buy shocked frozen food. And certainly a well-known and reliable manufacturer. But canned peas, if you really can't refuse it at all, choose based on the composition. The fewer additional ingredients other than peas and water are listed, the better for your health.

Green pea sauce

This delicate creamy sauce is the perfect addition to meat or vegetable dishes. Served with chopped cutlets, turkey meatballs, potato croquettes with cheese or pasta, it brings out the flavor of the main course and complements it with freshness and aroma.

Ingredients:

Fresh or frozen peas - 0.5 kg
Onions - 1 pc.
Flour - 1 tbsp. l.
Vegetable oil - for frying
Chicken broth - 350 ml
Cream 33% - 150 ml
Parsley to taste
Salt, pepper - to taste

Cooking method:

Blanch the peas in boiling salted water for about 5 minutes. Remove with a colander and let the remaining water drain.

Chop the onion finely and fry in vegetable oil until transparent, sprinkle with flour.

Pour the broth into the onion and simmer it over low heat for about 15 minutes.

Add the peas, leaving about 100 grams, and the chopped parsley. Pour in the cream, puree, transfer to a gravy boat and add the remaining peas.

My family loves all kinds of gravy, various chutneys, sauces. In my opinion, it is they who bring variety, give even the most common dish juiciness and originality.

This gravy is surprisingly combined with boiled rice, various pasta, mashed potatoes and buckwheat porridge.

You can make the dish thinner by adding just the right amount of water.

A gravy of cheese and peas to your taste and desire can be supplemented with any fresh herbs.

As for spices, I recommend our favorite set - asafoetida (a substitute for the taste of onion and garlic, as well as just a healthy spice), turmeric, black pepper, paprika. In addition to these spices, I highly recommend trying black salt instead of ordinary, and also ordinary bay leaf will not be superfluous.

Heat vegetable (or ghee) butter in a skillet. Lay out the Adyghe cheese, cut into small cubes. The fire should be lower than the maximum so that the cheese does not burn, but strong enough so that the cheese is not stewed, but fried. Depending on the moisture content of the cheese, it may "splash". Also, if the cheese is stirred too often with insufficient fire power, then the cheese can turn into porridge, and we need neatly fried cubes.

Transfer the fried cheese to a plate, and add some more oil to the pan and add the peeled tomato slices. Add the spices, stir and simmer until the tomatoes are soft.

Add tomato paste, sour cream, salt, stir. Bring to a boil. If necessary, water can be added at this stage.

Now it's the turn of the Adyghe cheese and canned peas. Place them in a skillet.

Stir, bring to a boil and remove from heat.

The cheese and pea gravy is certainly good freshly cooked hot, and better served that way, but chilled it will complement your everyday meals in a worthy way.

We will cook the sauce for salmon first, so that then quickly cook the fish and serve immediately, since the fish is cooked very quickly.

Chop the shallots very finely. If you didn't manage to buy shallots, you can take white onions, it has a milder taste, or a regular onion. Pour olive (or any vegetable) oil into a suitable volumetric, thick-bottomed saucepan, and when it warms up, add a piece of butter. As soon as the butter melts, add and sauté our chopped onion over low heat until soft, it should become transparent.

After that, add frozen peas to the onion, without defrosting directly, and, stirring, cook for several minutes.

After that, it's time to add liquid to the sauce: fish broth or, in its absence, just boiling water, and cream. You can take cream of any fat content, ranging from ten and ending with thirty-five percent heavy cream, depending on this, the sauce will have a more or less creamy taste.

Now season our sauce to taste with a pinch of sugar, salt and pepper and turn it into a smooth puree with an immersion blender. For perfect silkiness, you can rub the sauce through a sieve, but this is not necessary.

The sauce is ready and you can quickly cook the fish. I usually buy a piece of chilled salmon on the skin, remove the skin, cut the fish into portions, remove the bones and then cook in the chosen way. For this recipe, you can take salmon or trout cut into steaks, if so familiar.

Salmon is a fatty fish, so to fry it, I did not pour oil into the pan, I just greased the bottom with a brush and that's it. She rinsed the pieces of fish, blotted it with a paper towel, seasoned with pepper and salt and fried on all sides until fully cooked and rosy, about ten minutes. Serve the fish immediately with pea sauce, herbs, lemon wedges.

We offer you a recipe for an unusual, but very tasty sauce. We will cook it with green peas. We are confident that it will fit into your everyday menu and become quite popular with your family. The sauce perfectly complements various dishes and goes well with fish or meat.

Necessary products

• green peas - 500 gr
• onion - 1 piece
• paprika - 1 tsp
• flour - 2 tablespoons
• vegetable oil - 2 tablespoons
• butter - 1 tablespoon
• cream - 200 ml
• water - 600 ml
• salt, pepper to taste

Let's start cooking

1. Peel the onion and cut into small pieces.
2. Pour vegetable oil into a saucepan with a thick bottom and add butter. Heat it well and add the onion. Fry it over low heat until golden brown and add paprika, mix everything quickly.
3. Add flour to the resulting mass and mix again. We pass it all together for 1 minute.
4. Then pour in water and mix quickly until smooth.
5. Salt and pepper the mixture to taste, mix and add green peas.
6. Bring the mass to a boil and boil it under a slightly open lid for 25-30 minutes.
7. Pour cream into the finished sauce, mix and boil for another 2 minutes. Add dill to the sauce if desired.
8. The prepared sauce is best served with mashed potatoes prepared according to the recipe from our website.