The loveFOOD guide to... peas and beans
Peas and beans are incredibly good for you, as well as being very cheap.
Green peas
The humble pea, picked at its optimal freshness in the middle of summer, is a thing of beauty. And any excess can be plunged into a freezer so it’s there for us all year round. You can add a handful of peas to pretty much any savoury recipe, and they’re popular with children due to their sweetness. Don’t cook them for too long (they need less time than you think) and once cooked remember to refresh them in cold water.
Petit pois
Petit pois are simply green peas harvested before they come to full maturity. They are therefore smaller, and often sweeter, than their full-grown counterparts. Use them as you would peas but be very careful not to overcook them – they're also great in egg fried rice.
Snow peas and snap peas
The moniker 'mangetout' – French for 'eat all' – can apply to both of these types of peas. Snow peas are flat-podded and snap peas are round-podded. These can be eaten raw as part of a salad, or are served in stir fries or after steaming. Crunchy when raw, but will retain their sweet flavour after cooking too.
Kidney beans
Today, these are most known for appearing in chilli con carne, though there are purists who dispute their presence in the dish, saying it’s a Tex-Mex addition. They’re also found in things like veggie burgers as well as curries.
Heston Blumenthal's rich chilli con carne with spiced butter recipe
Haricot beans
Creamy white beans similar to cannelloni beans, these have a mild nutty texture and are great for thickening and adding body to soups and slow cooked dishes. Great in stews with lighter meats like chicken, or as a salad dressed with a sharp vinaigrette and finely chopped tomato and summer herbs
Rachel Allen's smoked sausage, bean and root vegetable soup recipe
Baked beans
The classic comfort food, beans on toast, is nothing more than haricot beans (also known as navy beans) cooked in a sweetened tomato sauce. And it's loved by kids and adults alike. If you’re cooking for a lot of people, use three tins of baked beans to one of chopped tomatoes, it’ll dial down the sweetness and add more flavour. Tabasco works well too, as does a generous sprinkling of pepper and some grilled, diced bacon.
Make it don't buy it: Baked beans
Chickpeas
Cooked, blitzed and thrown together with tahini they give us hummus, but whole they are used in curries and many other Asian dishes: for instance, ground a little less finally they give us falafel. Chickpea flour is popular in India (think bhajis, samosas and so on), though it’s also used in parts of Southern France and Spain during Lent. Warm and spicy flavours are the natural companion for chickpeas.
You might also find them sold as garbanzo beans. A handy hint: whole dried chickpeas can be used as baking beads to stop your pastry cases rising!
Green beans
Great all-round veg that adds a touch of class to any dish. Sometimes called French beans, they’re best topped and tailed and plunged into boiling water. You can also use them in stir-fries, and other quickly cooked dishes.
Sichuanese 'dry-fried' green beans recipe
Broad beans
Another taste of summer. If you get them at the start of the season, they won’t need their skins removing; later on, this little jacket gets a bit tough so is best removed after blanching. As well as being great on their own, or in summer soups and salads, they’re popular in the Middle East too, where they’re dried, and ground up to make falafel.
Rachel Allen's broad bean and asparagus salad recipe
Black-eyed peas
Black-eyed peas are called black-eyed peas because of their characteristic... black eyes. Little dots of black on light yellow beans. Grown over several continents, it's a traditional ingredient in the Southern United States used to make Hoppin' John, a dish of peas, rice and pork. It's served in Portugal with boiled cod and potatoes, and Vietnam to make a sweet dessert called che dau trang which is made with ginger, sweet rice and coconut milk.
Adzuki beans
Adzuki beans are often boiled with sugar to create a red bean paste, which is used in East Asian sweets and puddings. Chestnuts are sometimes also added. In Japan, the paste is known as 'anko', and in China as 'dou sha' or 'hongdou sha'. It's also used in some savoury dishes like soup. A popular Japanese use is to bake the paste into into a fish-shaped batter cake known as bungeoppang.
Lima beans
Also known as the butter bean, these beans originate from South America and contain lots of vitamins and important minerals. They're good boiled and salted, but they're even better cooked in stock, which they just soak up. Make a full stew with spices, meat and other vegetables of your choice.
Mauritian butter bean and lamb curry recipe
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Low sugar v original: baked beans
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