Adapted from a recipe published in the New York Times: September 28, 2010.
Yield: 4 to 6 servings.
Minestrone with Field Peas and Almond Pistou
field peas
Shrimp and Southern Pea Salad
Now on to the real stars of this week’s box – the field peas.
You can use any southern pea in this recipe, but the cooking time will vary by variety and how mature the peas were when harvested. Our fresh pink-eye peas should cook pretty quickly.
Hands on: 20 minutes
Total time: 40 minutes
Serves: 4
Field Peas with Butter, Mint and Lime
This recipe is from Matt and Ted Lee of The Lee Bros. Charleston Kitchen, author of several terrific Southern cookbooks. Scale down according to the amount of peas in your bag. The recipe was written for butter beans, but will work just fine with your field peas.
About this recipe, they say:
Along with muscadine grapes, butter beans are among the farmer’s market treasures of late summer—reason to wake up with gusto to another day of stultifying heat and oxford-soaking humidity. We do all kinds of things with butter beans: we make a hummus-like spread for the cocktail hour, we simmer them with seasoning meats of all sorts, and we compose marinated salads aplenty. But this may be our most simple treatment yet, and one of the most satisfying.
Butter beans come in many varieties: Some beans are green with purple speckles, some are reddish brown, a few are ivory colored, and there’s a shade of green besides. For this simple side dish, we like to use the small green ones (though you may use frozen baby lima beans if butter beans aren’t in season).
Tomato and Chick Pea Salad
This simple salad will keep for about a week in your refrigerator, perfect for dipping out a spoonful to accompany a sandwich or serve as a hot weather entrée. You can use any canned beans you like, or maybe you have your own stash of home cooked beans in the freezer.
Grilled Flat-Iron Steak with Charred Tomato Butter and Grilled Succotash
This recipe comes from last August’s Fine Cooking magazine. Do you still have that bag of pink eye peas in your refrigerator? Then combine them with this week’s corn and make that succotash!
Peppered Tuna with Crowder Peas
As pretty as those lady peas are earlier in the year, it’s crowder peas that really make me happy. Try this adaption of a recipe from ages ago in Southern Living. I think they served it on salad greens and topped it with bernaise sauce. You could serve do the same but instead of bernaise sauce, just whip up a little vinaigrette.
Roasted Okra, Tomatoes and Field Peas
Is there any chance you still have a tomato or two left over from last week’s box? This recipe is from Scott Peacock.
Nicoise Salad with Poached Egg and Smoked Paprika
Yes, here’s another reason you need to have smoked paprika in your pantry. This recipe from Carvel Grant Gould of Canoe uses a pinch of smoked paprika. Once you try it you’ll see why our chefs all like to incorporate small amounts into their food.
Cornmeal Crusted Catfish with Heirloom Beans and Tomato Gravy
This recipe is from Charleston’s renowned chef, Sean Brock. A little complicated but oh, so delicious.
Sweet Potatoes with Collard Greens and Field Peas
With apologies to those of you who get emails from Whole Foods, this is a recipe that just arrived in my inbox today. “Sweet potatoes, collard greens …. and how about substituting those field peas for the aduki beans called for in the recipe,” I thought. And so, here it is.