A quick culinary confession: I love frozen peas. Apparently Nigel Slater once referred to Nigella Lawson as “the queen of the frozen pea”, and while I don’t profess to be heir to the throne, I do like to think I could be lady-in-waiting.
I will not tolerate snobbery about frozen peas. They are arguably one of the single most useful ingredients in the kitchen, not least because they take less than no time to cook. Eminently versatile, these tiny green pearls of sweetness have brightened up (and occasionally downright saved) innumerable meals of my life. I’m genuinely not sure I could live without them. Some people worry about not having milk in the house, whereas I get palpitations at the thought of finishing a bag of petits pois.
Like most British children, frozen peas were a stalwart in my burgeoning (yet typically limited) palate. Unfortunately, my mother is famously suspicious of frozen peas and would only cook them when she either had no other choice, or when they were so outnumbered by kernels of sweetcorn their flavour disappeared entirely. I therefore only discovered their true potential as a student, when I was finally let loose upon the kitchen and was, coincidentally, skint. By that point, there was no time to really think about what to cook beyond “Will this dish help prevent my contracting any communicable diseases that could ruin my finals?” and as a result, I ate frozen peas multiple times a week. Veggie sausages? Serve with peas. Pasta sauce? Add peas. Frittata? Why not try peas? I revelled in their versatility and speed, tossing handfuls of them into almost every dish with minimal skill and maximum enthusiasm.
Without essay deadlines looming, my portfolio of frozen pea recipes now includes peppery samosas, fragrant salads with tarragon and toasted coriander and a creamy household favourite known simply as The Courgette and Pea Thing. Not that I prefer such finesse – I’m more than happy chucking fistfuls of peas straight from bag to boiling water, before tipping them onto my plate alongside anything that mildly (or sometimes, not even vaguely) complements them. Using a fork to spear peas like beads on an abacus is as redolent of British school dinners as turkey dinosaurs, but I will defend it to the last.
Don’t get me wrong, I can wax as lyrically as any other cook about the joys of podding a kilo of fresh garden peas in summer: of the satisfying ‘pop’ as you break open the pod, and the soft-as-silk feel of its bright green skin. But there is another beauty altogether in being able to reach into your freezer and pull out a bag of peas any time of year, for which we have to thank one Clarence Birdseye, and the eponymous results of his flash freezing experiments some hundred years ago. Birdseye’s techniques, when applied to the humble green pea, preserve the startling brightness of its hue, even after defrosting. As such, frozen peas inevitably brighten up a plate, throwing the brownness of everything else into sharp relief. Their energetic combination of colour and sweetness gives every meal a little verdant lift, even when June feels a million miles away.
If all of this weren’t enough of a reason to bulk-buy the Birdseye, the frozen pea has another little trick up its chilly sleeve. Every bag of the stuff constitutes the ultimate homemade anti-inflammatory – a fact that even frozen vegetable refuseniks can’t deny. Neither prescription nor preparation is required to reap the benefits, and there’s not a bump, sprain or swelling that isn’t rendered a little more bearable by the application of a bag of peas. You can even, at a pinch (and probably a brief microwave), snack on them while waiting for the pain to subside. If only all medicine tasted that good.
