Pea Shoots, Strawberries, Sweet Onions

Fresh pea shoots were once a delicacy encountered only in the sort of serious Chinese restaurants you find in Hong Kong or Taipei. Now they’re turning up at Asian supermarkets in Southern California. The 99 Ranch Market in Chinatown has them for $2.99 a pound, while the Ai Hoa Super Market, also in Chinatown, is charging $1.99 a pound. You can find the shoots easily at the Ranch Market, thanks to a shelf label, but at Ai Hoa they are not marked. Ask for dau miu, which is the Cantonese name.

These stemmy greens are embellished with tendrils and small white blossoms. Sweet and pleasant to eat raw, they have great potential as a salad green. Or stir-fry them with oil and season with chopped garlic, ginger or oyster sauce. Serve as an accompaniment to any meat dish, or copy Chinese chefs and arrange the shoots around stir-fried scallops or shrimp.

Roadside stands in Orange County will be selling locally grown strawberries until June. The berries are normally large and sweet at the start of the season, but rain has put a damper on quality, says Bill Nelson, who staffs a stand at the intersection of Bear and Baker streets in Costa Mesa. Nelson was selling Irvine fruit last week; for those in the market for instant dessert, he also stocks Dolly Madison shortcakes, glaze and jam. The berries are picked fresh daily and trucked to the stand. Hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and the day’s pick generally arrives around 9:30 a.m. The price is $28 for a full flat (12 baskets), $14 for a half flat and $7 for three well-heaped baskets.

Chilean sweet onions, which are so mild you can bite into them without a twinge, have been a great buy. Vons cornered the market on the Chileans this year. They’re gone now, but sweet onions from Texas are on their way. Called Texas 1015s (because the planting date is Oct. 15), these sweet brown onions will be in stores in a week or two.

Bad weather has affected a number of crops, including Hawaiian pineapples. Rain and wind in the islands have resulted in small fruit and big prices. Bananas are also more costly than usual. And rain has cut down the quantity of sugar snap peas harvested in California and Baja California. Cold is responsible for reduced supplies of artichokes and asparagus, so choose another vegetable for Easter dinner. But plan on a salad made with iceberg lettuce, which is plentiful and at peak quality. For dessert, treat guests to a rhubarb pie made with extra-fancy cherry-red Oregon rhubarb, which will be around until early summer.