peas and pods

How do you get green peas out of their pods? I've always done it by hand: a bit tedious, but a sort of satisfying thing to do whilst chatting or listening to a talking book perhaps. I was reading some of Grow your own vegetables by Joy Larkcom (looking for carrot root fly info, but got distracted) and she mentioned that she cooks the peas in their pods and shells them after cooking, saying that the flavour is better. It occurs to me that this could be a way of getting two dishes with one pan too - as the pods are already cooked, it is a very small step to making peapod soup. Shelling them whilst hot could be tricky though, and I think the peas would probably need refreshing with hot water as they would cool too much. Has anyone tried this method? Do you have a better method of shelling peas to suggest?

Same way. It takes me back to sitting on my grandma's porch swing, with a bag of them between us, a bag on the porch floor, in front of us, for the hulls, and a bowl in each of our laps for the peas.

i could see cooking in the pod boosting flavor, kind of like the advice to cook sweet corn cobs in water after removing the kernels to make better chowder. Maybe more work to shell when they're cooked though. (says the laziest of the lazy--- i only grow snow peas, and we eat the pods!)

I've always shelled them, at my leisure, prior to cooking.

I think an experiment is in order!

I have fond memories of sitting in someones back yard with my aunts while shelling purple hull peas.

The procedure is much like the description Nancy gave.  Nice comradery ...

The one year we grew enough peas for a meal, I cooked them in the shell. They opened on their own. I put them on the plates to thin out the labor. : D

Joylynn Hardesty wrote:The one year we grew enough peas for a meal, I cooked them in the shell. They opened on their own. I put them on the plates to thin out the labor. : D

Did you serve them shell and all?

I'm hoping to grow more green peas this year, so am really interested in some labour saving....

Shells and all. We did not eat the shells.

Pea shell soup? I hadn't heard of that. Recipe?

Joylynn Hardesty wrote:Shells and all. We did not eat the shells.

It seems that if they open themselves that is part of the labour done for you already.

Pea shell soup? I hadn't heard of that. Recipe?

It's definitely a thing! Maybe a UK ultra frugal thing, but you get the flavour of the peas and some texture from the pods. here is one online recipe - uses potato, some peas and spinach for colour. I'll have to check my recipe books to see what else I can find.

Confession time - I got fed up with podding peas, only to throw out the pods (didn't know about pea-pod soup then)  and I've been growing mange toute, sugar snap varieties.  

I'm with Jill. I've only been doing edible pod for years. It can be a bit tricky finding ones where both the peas and the pods are tasty when they fill out but it's worth it.
I have considered growing out some of the drying peas we use for microgreens.

I do love the idea of making stock from the shells!

Dry, soup type peas are easy to shell. Their pods are flat and don't shrink around the peas like some of the sweeter pea varieties do.  We put the dried in the pod soup peas in a large tub and use an electric hand mixer to break open the pods (you'll need a cloth draped over the tub to keep the peas from flying all over the place).  Then you can pick out the pods and winnow what's left to get down to clean, edible dry peas. When seed saving the wrinkled pod types, hand shelling works best.

For fresh peas, there are roller devices to speed up the chore, kind of like a wringer on an old washing machine. We used to have a hand cranked one and I seem to remember that these were available as an electric gadjet as well. I think these devices would work better if the pods were very lightly steamed or blanched first, but not too much so that the peas would get smashed in the process (save the water to make broth with the pods after shelling).  Maybe just a brief dunk in a colander into a pot of boiling water would be sufficient? Probably would need a towel or cloth to keep the peas from shooting out and escaping.

We too prefer snow peas to eat pods and all. Lately we've been focusing on varieties with brown seeds as they also make good soup peas if the pods get ahead of us at harvest time. We gave up on snap peas as the birds preferred them but even snow peas need Remay protection most years.

Nancy Reading wrote:I'll have to check my recipe books to see what else I can find.

From 'Farmhouse fare': Farmers' weekly recipe book from between WW1 and WW2

Green Soup
Don't throw away pea pods. Wash them thoroughly in salt water. Put into a pan with water, salt, an onion, carrot, and bunch of herbs. Boil until tender (on the back of the stove all the afternoon), then pass through a sieve. Thicken with a litle cornflour and butter. This makes an excellent green soup.
From Miss R. Overington, Surrey