Only a very lazy and negligent gardener does not grow such a crop as peas on his garden plot. This delicious and nutritious product is loved by both adults and children. From peas, you can cook many varied and healthy dishes. Many housewives prefer to cook peas in a slow cooker. Soups and mashed potatoes with this cooking method cook faster and retain all their beneficial substances.
How to cook peas
Pea soup is on the menu of many families. This is one of the popular soups, which is on a par with mushroom, borsch, cabbage soup and pickle. You can cook peas in a saucepan on gas or electricity. But the owners of the Russian stove can afford the most exotic cooking of peas. In urban conditions, the Russian stove can be replaced, for this you need to cook peas in a slow cooker. You can make pea soup on the water or on the broth. You can just cook it with peas and salt, or you can cook a rare, gourmet dish. In addition to soup, peas are perfect for cooking second courses.
Indian Dal Soup
The recipe for this soup was found in the Indian Vedic cookbook.
Ingredients:
- Dry yellow peas - 250 grams.
- Potato - 4 pieces.
- Carrot - 1 piece.
- Water - 1.5 liters.
- Fresh ginger root - one teaspoon (grate).
- Ghee (ghee) or vegetable oil - one tablespoon.
- Bay leaf.
- Greens and spices (turmeric, curry, black and red pepper) to taste,
- Salt.
How to cook "Dal"
Dal soup can be prepared with peas or lentils. Depending on the density, it can be used as a standalone dish or served as a side dish. For those who want to follow the rules of Ayurveda, it is not recommended to use carrots and potatoes in the soup, as it does not welcome the use of legumes and potatoes at the same time. These products can be exchanged for any other vegetables, such as zucchini and tomatoes.
Sort legumes, rinse and dry. Place the prepared peas in a slow cooker and pour boiling water. Add a drop of oil, a little salt and a pinch of cinnamon. Indian cooks recommend peas in this way. This will not allow a large amount of foam to form during the cooking process. Close the slow cooker and set the "Soup" mode, cook the peas almost until ready.
Grate the carrots or zucchini, peel the potatoes (if you still use them) and chop finely. Add these products to the slow cooker. Heat ghee or vegetable oil in a pan, put spices and grated ginger in it. Fry the mixture for one minute. Add boiling mixture to soup and mix. The dish is ready, when serving, sprinkle it with herbs.
Russian pea stew
To cook peas in a slow cooker, the recipe for such a stew, by the way, is considered a classic, you can very quickly and simply.
Ingredients:
- Smoked pork shank - one kilogram.
- Potato - 4 pieces, medium in size.
- Carrot - 1 piece.
- Onions - 1 piece.
- Dry peas - 400 grams.
- Vegetable oil - two tablespoons.
- Water - two liters.
- Salt, spices, herbs and garlic to taste.
Before you cook peas in a slow cooker, it must be soaked for a couple of hours in cold water. While it will soak, it is necessary to put a smoked shank to cook . When it is ready, separate the meat from the bone and chop finely, put back into the broth. Put the soaked and washed peas in a slow cooker with boiling broth and cook for about thirty minutes.
Peel and chop the potatoes, grate the carrots, you can chop the onion, or put the whole chowder. If chopped onions go to the soup, then it and the carrots must be fried in a pan. Add vegetables to the pea stew. Boil for another 10-15 minutes, put spices, salt and herbs in it. The classic Russian pea stew is ready.
Pea soup
You can try to cook a very beautiful and mouth-watering soup of green and yellow dry peas, red and green lentils, rice and pearl barley. For this soup, you can buy the finished mixture in the store or collect all the ingredients yourself. You need to cook such a soup in the broth or just on the water, as a lean option.
Ingredients:
- Ready mix for soup - 1 glass (if there is no mixture, then take the listed ingredients in the same amount so that everything fits in one glass).
- Potato - 3 pieces.
- Carrot - 1 piece.
- Onion - 1 piece.
- Water or broth - 2 liters.
- Salt, pepper, bay leaf - to taste.
- Greens (dill and parsley).
- Celery root (grate) - 2 tablespoons.
- Vegetable oil for frying carrots and onions in a pan.
If the mixture contains chopped ingredients, then you can and should cook such peas in a slow cooker without soaking. It will boil well and make a wonderful soup puree. Before you cook peas in a slow cooker, it must be washed and then cooked for half an hour. During this time, you need to prepare vegetables. Peel and chop the potatoes. Grate celery. Fry finely chopped onion and grated carrots in oil in a pan. Thirty minutes later, add vegetables to the slow cooker with soup, salt, add spices and cook for another 15–20 minutes. Before serving, garnish the soup with herbs.
Pea porridge or mashed potatoes
A wonderful and satisfying option for a side dish or an independent dish is pea porridge. Great for breakfast, lunch and dinner. It can be eaten even by those who are on a diet and count calories. Pea porridge has a low calorie content, but it can saturate the body for a long time.
Ingredients:
- Dry peas - 500 grams.
- Soda - half a teaspoon.
- Salt to taste.
- Water - as much as necessary.
Sort and rinse the beans, soak for two hours, and preferably at night. Then put in a slow cooker, add soda and pour boiling water so that the peas are covered with water. Cook pea porridge in the Redmond slow cooker or any other for about thirty minutes. Then again add water to the top of the porridge, salt and cook until tender.
According to this recipe, you can cook mashed potatoes with pork or add stewed meat to it. As a seasoning for porridge, you can make fried carrots with onions in a pan.
Pea story
No one will say exactly when the peas appeared. The first archaeological finds associated with peas date back to the 9th-10th centuries BC. Some scientists think that peas originated in Asia, while others believe that it first appeared in Thailand and Burma. After all, it was there that the peas were found during excavations. Initially, it was a wild culture, and people just collected it. But in the Mediterranean countries, as well as in the Far East, peas are the first plant that they began to grow in the gardens. In Greece, this culture began to be used already in our era, from about 600 years. As confirmed in writing, hot pea stew was very popular in Athens.
In France, peas began to be consumed from the 13th century; it quickly became the favorite food of the French. Absolutely everyone, regardless of wealth or poverty, ate pea porridge and stew. Since he is very nutritious, the poor especially appreciated him.
Pea stew is considered a traditional dish of Russian cuisine. When excavating peas for the first time, it was discovered in Ukraine, then in Belarus. A written certificate of its use in Russia dates from 1674. At that time, the culture was actively grown in the Yaroslavl province.
Columbus brought peas to a new world in 1493. And in the 17th century, unripe green peas began to be consumed, and they were added to almost any dish. In Germany, he was also very popular; pea sausage was made for German soldiers until the end of World War II.
The benefits of peas
Peas are also of great benefit to the garden. It is an excellent natural fertilizer. At the place where the peas grew, mineral nitrogen appears and is preserved in the soil, so other crops planted after it will grow and bear fruit well.
There are a wide variety of legumes in the world, but peas are the real king of this crop. It is more than others rich in protein, so it is a more nutritious product from the whole family.
Pea and ship
The large Dnepr ocean ship was transporting a lot of peas in the hold, but it so happened that near the Bosphorus it came across a reef and received slight damage to the side. The hole itself was small, but in the hold, however, water began to ooze. Peas began to be actively saturated with water and quickly swell. As a result, the ship simply tore into pieces, as if a bomb had exploded in it. This case is described by Paustovsky, who saw the broken Dnieper with his own eyes, in the story Black Sea. When the team of “The Brave”, on which Paustovsky was at that time, decided to tow the bow of the Dnieper, the boatswain could not resist and shouted: “Hey, you, torn with peas, poison the tip!” Sailors from the deck of the destroyed ship only threatened their brazen boatswain with his fist.