Greek Black-Eyed Peas Salad

By Kath Dedon

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Did you have black-eyed peas for New Year’s? I made a Greek Black-Eyed Peas Salad to take to a New Year’s Day party.

Black-eyed peas on New Year’s are supposed to bring prosperity. Green leafy vegetables are eaten to attract money. (In this recipe I used spinach.) The salad was one of many side dishes served with the hosts’ ham. Pork is also considered good luck on New Year’s Day because, according to Wikipedia, “pigs root forward when foraging, representing positive motion”. So I think we covered all of the bases.

The recipe is from a post by Hank Shaw on simplyrecipes.com. I followed his method for cooking the dried black-eyed peas, but I left them in the pot a bit too long. Some were a little too mushy, but they still tasted great!

The only oil in the salad is the oil from the sun-dried tomatoes. Not knowing exactly how much oil was in the jar, I was concerned that it would be too much. I took the tomatoes out of the jar and found that there really wasn’t that much oil, so I used it all and it was perfect.

If you don’t want to bother with cooking dry beans (although it really is easy), you can substitute 2 cans of black-eyed peas.

Happy New Year!

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Greek Black-Eyed Peas Salad

(Adapted from Hank Shaw’s recipe on simplyrecipes.com)

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(print the recipe)

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Serves 8 – 10

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1 pound dry black-eyed peas

Salt

5 ounces baby spinach, washed and larger leaves torn in half

1 package of feta cheese, about 7 ounces

1 jar of sun-dried tomatoes in oil, about 8 ounces

1 cup black olives, preferably Kalamata or oil-cured (I used ½ cup oil-cured; 1 cup would have been better.)

1 finely chopped green onion

1 finely chopped garlic clove

Zest and juice of 1 lemon

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1. Rinse the black-eyed peas.

2. Heat a large pot of water to boiling. Add a heaping tablespoon of salt. Add the black-eyed peas and immediately turn the heat to low. It should be below the simmering point. Cook, uncovered, until they are done. It should take 30 minutes to an hour. The timing will depend on how old the black-eyed peas are. (I left mine for 1½ hours, which was too long.)

3. When the black-eyed peas are done, drain and let them cool down.

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4. Put the spinach in a large bowl.

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5. Add the feta cheese, the sun-dried tomatoes and their oil, the olives, green onion, garlic, and lemon zest to the spinach. Toss to combine.

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6. Add the black-eyed peas to the salad and toss well.

7. Just before serving, add the lemon juice and toss again.