Kitchen Garden

Simon Courtauld

I have just bought my first packet of asparagus pea seeds and have been learning about this curious vegetable. It is not a pea, nor is it related to asparagus, but it has attractive crimson flowers, similar to sweet peas or vetch in appearance, and odd-looking, winged seed pods, said to have the flavour of asparagus.

According to the Royal Horticultural Society, the plants ‘really will put the wow factor into the vegetable patch’. However one may react to this hyperbole, asparagus peas may be worth a try, and as sprawling plants they will look equally good as ground cover in a flower border.

The seeds should be sown under glass in early spring and planted out in mid-may, or sown directly into the ground when the risk of spring frosts has passed. The growing plants require little attention, and the seed pods should

start to form from the flowers after about eight weeks.

The most important advice relates to the picking of the pods, which should be done regularly and when they are no more than an inch in length. The delicate asparagus taste can be detected only if the pods are eaten – raw or cooked – soon after picking.

If they are allowed to grow any larger, they will become stringy and the taste, in the words of one or two comments I have read, is more akin to that of cardboard or carpet underlay. Since asparagus peas are popular in Asian cooking, it may be advisable to dip or cook them in a few spices.

However, I look forward to the experiment and may grow asparagus peas alongside a variety of mangetout peas – Shiraz or Carouby de Maussane – with purple flowers; Shiraz has purple pods as well.

Asparagus peas were known in the time of Elizabeth I, while mangetouts have a more recent history. I avoided them when they were fashionable in the 1970s, and was not impressed with their flavour. But now the idea of both these pea substitutes is quite appealing. At least the flowers will look pretty.