Chinese Recipes | Cooking Tips | Good Eats

I think Rachel Ray cheated. It’s quite impossible to have sugar snap peas as part of the preparation for a 30-minute meal, without removing and discarding the stem ends and the strings from each pod. In her recipes in foodnetwork.com, she did not even have that step. What? You mean she ate them? Quite impossible. The stems and string do not taste very good.

It took me about 20 minutes (and the TV was off) to just remove and discard the stem ends and the strings from EACH pod, using a pair of kitchen scissors. To do this, use a kitchen scissors to make a small cut at the stem (the tip) of the pea, getting hold of the string. Pull the string up the straightest side toward the other stem end and continue pulling the string until there is no more. It was a tedious task, but it was worth it because sugar snap peas are crunchy and sweet and easy to cook.

All I needed were the following:

Ingredients (Serves 2):

- about 4 cups, sugar snap peas
- 1/4 lb pork
- salt and pepper
- 1/2 tsp corn flour
- 1 tsp minced garlic
- 1 tbsp oyster sauce

Preparation and cooking method:

1. Pick through the sugar snap peas to remove any that aren’t perfect. Remove and discard the stem end and the strings from both seams of each pod.

2. Cut pork into thin strips, season with salt and pepper. Add corn flour and mix well. Note: If you find it difficult to cut pork into thin strips at their raw stage, just cut them into thin slices first and use the kitchen scissors to cut into strips when cooked.

3. Heat up a wok with 2 tbsp vegetable oil. Medium heat. When oil is hot enough, add garlic and stir fry until fragrant, but not burnt.

4. Add pork and stir fry until color changes. Add sugar snap peas and stir fry for a few seconds then add oyster sauce and mix well. Add some water (about 1-2 tbsp) if you find that the dish is too dry. Reduce heat and cover the wok to allow the sugar snap peas to cook for about 4 minutes.

5. Do a taste test. If the sugar snap peas still taste raw, cover wok lid and simmer for another minute of so. Add a pinch of salt if not salty enough.

Sugar snap peas add color, texture and variety to meals. Oh! If stringless and stemless sugar snap peas exist, please tell me where to find them!