Pea shoots (Pisum sativum), known in Chinese as dou miao, are the tender growing tips of the garden-pea vine — the top few centimetres of leaf, stem and curling tendril picked before the plant sets pods. Sweet, grassy and unmistakably of fresh green peas, they are stir-fried hard and fast with garlic across southern China and Hong Kong, and tossed raw into salads in the West, where they are sold as a distinct and prized leafy green in their own right.