Vegetarian Giro Stage 7: Vegetarian Giro d'Italia: Piselli alla Toscana

by Megabeth on May 15, 2010 8:42 AM EDT

Sticking with the simple Tuscan cooking style, I went with an easy pea dish that brings a pleasant contrast in textures. Don't let its simplicity of ingredients fool you, it's a fantastic side dish. I used some day old ciabatta bread for the croutons. These simple croutons came out crisp and flavorful. When added to the dish they soaked up the garlicky liquid from the peas and rounded out the experience.

Simple, quick and flavorful…a true Tuscan dish.

Recipes and details on Veggin'...

Tweet Comment 5 comments | 0 recs |

Do you like this story?

Comments

This looks delicious

I’m totally making some.

by LurkerMcLurkerson on May 16, 2010 12:17 AM EDT reply actions

Southern Europe does some nice peas-as-main-course dishes

this one’s from Elizabeth David, as it’s the most veggie one I could find:

Petit Pois a la Francaise
2lbs of small peas, 3 ozs. butter, 8-12 very small onions, the heart of a lettuce, seasoning.
Put peas, butter, onions and the lettuce heart into a small thick pan, season with salt, sugar. When the butter is bubbling cover with water and simmer gently until the peas are tender. When the water is absorbed stir in more butter and serve.

but other versions involve frying some parma ham or similar very slowly to sweat the fat out then using that as a basis for a sauce to hold the peas together, rather than having them all rolling around the plate like marbles in the Anglo-Saxon way.

by Monty. on May 16, 2010 7:37 AM EDT reply actions

I eat my peas with honey.

I’ve done it all my life.
They may taste kinda funny…
But, it keeps ’em on my knife.

(Wow, that came out of the recesses of my brain…)

by Megabeth on May 16, 2010 8:42 AM EDT up reply actions

This reminds me...

…of a Sicilian dish my Mom used to make. Basically the same dish, except you don’t completely drain the peas and you substitute ditalini pasta for the croutons. Comfort food for me.

"He looked pretty good until he went over the side of that cliff." - thevaro

by SpaceGuy on May 19, 2010 1:23 AM EDT reply actions