Her Black-Eyed Pea Salad, My Mother’s Ambrosia & Trading Places - No. 71

Changing things up! The Department of Salad shares a New Year’s recipe with us

Dec 28, 2021

I invited fellow Substack writer Emily Nunn to bring her black-eyed pea salad to Between the Layers, and I share my story of Ambrosia over on her newsletter, The Department of Salad. Happy New Year! And if you’d like to read more about Emily’s newsletter, here’s how:

Read about The Department of Salad

Emily Nunn. Photo: Audra Melton for Fortune

A BLACK-EYED PEA SALAD FOR A REASONABLY HAPPY NEW YEAR

By Emily Nunn

BEFORE I BEGIN, SOME PERSONAL NOTES: I grew up in the South eating beans. I grew up eating lots of ham. I grew up eating collard greens (although not often, and they were frozen or canned, served at lunch in my school cafeteria).

But I did not grow up eating black-eyed peas or Hoppin’ John on New Year’s Day for good luck. I don’t recall eating anything special at all to mark the coming year, or to conjure good fortune in it. And to be honest, I’m pretty sure I didn’t taste black-eyed peas until I left Virginia for college in Georgia.

So, rather than me bloviating about the centuries-old Southern tradition, I’m pointing you in the direction of recent work by writers who are more definitive when it comes to tracing the cultural and or culinary antecedents of the practice.

Black-Eyed Pea Salad. Photos: Emily Nunn.

I’m much more comfortable pontificating about salad—a dish that feels lucky for me. At the very least, writing an entire newsletter about it has made me extremely happy.

Creating luck or happiness is a lot to demand of any dish these days, but I’m still giving it a go—I still have hope!—with a black-eyed pea salad that’s so delicious and easy I just might make it my own non-traditional New Year’s dish.

If you don’t have fresh beans, you’ll always be happier starting a pot from dried.

Black-eyed peas, as you’re probably aware, are a bean, not a pea, and after growing up on pots of hot beans I’ve lately been entranced by how enthusiastically cold (or room temperature) beans take to big, bright, fresh flavors like garlic and lemon and herbs. (Here’s a link that will lead you to a brochure I created for Rancho Gordo, which includes a few other really good and easy bean salads to eat all year round.)

But one of the things I love about black-eyed peas is this: what they lack in the beauty department they more than make up for in flavor. To me, they taste greener than actual peas, and they definitely have more bright earthy notes than actual green beans.

The perfect ingredients for starting 2022 deliciously.

This bean salad has salty prosciutto—to echo the southern tradition of cooking not just beans but practically everything we eat with a piece of ham or side meat—as well as quite a bit of mint. It’s a combination I’ve been wild about ever since I made the great British cookbook author Nigel Slater’s lentil soup with lemon, pancetta and mint from Tender: A Cook and His Vegetable Patch.

I am happy to report that this dish is easily expandable into a perfect lunch entrée, by embellishing it with a seeded diced cucumber and/or a good handful of grape tomatoes, chopped, along with a bit more dressing and a few more herbs. Which is why I’ve almost doubled the amount of dressing you’ll need.

I held a contest between 3 different kinds of black-eyed pas. First place, by far, were those I cooked from dried, on the far left; they were firmer and had great big vegetal flavor. In second place, in the middle, a package of steamed ready-to-eat, from Trader Joe’s; they had decent flavor and a nice texture. Canned beans, on the right, came in last; they were mushy and bland.

RECIPE: Black-Eyed Pea Salad for a Reasonably Happy New Year

For the dressing:

• Zest of ½ lemon

• 1/3 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice

• 1/3 cup olive oil

• 2 teaspoons red wine vinegar

• 1/2 to 1 teaspoon salt, more to taste (I used closer to a teaspoon)

• 2 small cloves garlic, grated on a mandoline or crushed

• 2 teaspoons honey

• pinch cayenne

• black pepper to taste

For the salad:

• 4 cups cooked black-eyed peas, from one cup dried. (I cooked them using a less prissy version of this method, with a few loose branches of thyme, a few peeled garlic cloves cut in half, and half an onion intact at the stem—all of which I removed after cooking and draining the peas.)

• 1/2 scant cup of thinly sliced mint leaves (stack them up then slice the stack crosswise: chiffonade!)

• 1/4 to 1/3 cup finely chopped red onion, depending on how much you love red onion (thinly sliced scallions with some of the green tops would also work)

• 6 to 9 slices prosciutto, cut into thin strips

Stack before you slice into a mint chiffonade.

For the dressing, in a jar with a tight-fitting lid, shake together all dressing ingredients until emulsified, being careful to fully incorporate the honey that may get stuck on the bottom.
For the salad, toss the cooked black-eyed peas with ¼ cup of the dressing and marinate for several hours or overnight in the fridge.
When ready to serve, toss the marinated peas with the mint, onion, and prosciutto. Taste for more dressing, as well as salt, pepper. To serve, line an appropriate size bowl with pretty leaves and pile the bean salad attractively atop them.

More about Emily!

I’m grateful to Emily Nunn for freshening up black-eyed peas, which get a bit dowdy and welcome new flavors. Here’s how to keep up with Emily on Twitter and Instagram. And how to read her memoir, one of NPR’s Best Books of 2017, The Comfort Food Diaries.

Read about my Ambrosia!

ONE OF THE MOST HEAVENLY childhood memories I have is the dining room sideboard crammed with triple-layer orange cake, chocolate fudge cake, sugar cookies, crescent cookies, and in the center of this orbit of celestial delights, my grandmother's cut-glass punch bowl filled with ambrosia…

Coming Thursday for Between the Layers Subscribers:

My favorite recipes and reflections from 2021, as well as looking ahead to the subjects that intrigue me for next year. It’s not too late to subscribe or gift a friend!

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