GROW your own PEA SHOOTS

I have seen pea shoots in restaurant dishes, very posh but I have never seen them for sale in supermarkets or elsewhere, so I thought I would try growing my own. Pea shoots are the tiny, tender leaves and vines of young pea plants. They are tasty and when you grow your own they will be on hand for use in a recipe or as a garnish.

Everybody has a windowsill, whether you live in a city or the country. This is a very simple and quick way of growing your own pea shoots, unlike others where I have seen them grown mainly in a compost I have simply grown them using kitchen paper, which is a much cleaner approach altogether.


METHOD:

First of all, you don't need to use the pea seeds that you would get from your seed supplier or garden centre. So save yourself some money and get a big bag or box of ordinary old dried peas from a supermarket.

Start by soaking a large handful of dried peas in water overnight. In the morning, drain and rinse them well, then soak them for the rest of the day in water before draining and rinsing them again. This speeds things up a little but I have also successfully grown pea shoots without having soaked the dried peas first. So try what works best for you.

Next, get a plastic storage or takeaway container and place a couple of folded sheets of kitchen paper in the bottom and add water until completely saturated. Add your peas, make a complete layer one pea high, don’t worry if they touch or overlap, just pile them in and press down very gently.

Transfer the container to a sunny windowsill and lightly mist them with water daily, keeping them moist. Leave the peas like this and they will grow pea shoots in about two weeks. Harvest the pea sprouts when they are a couple of inches tall, just as the tendrils begin to emerge.