I spent much of my life thinking that black-eyed peas were a Southern thing, and then I worked in an Ethiopian restaurant, where the African clientele told me that black-eyed peas actually come from Africa. Years later, I began cooking Greek food—imagine my surprise to find all sorts of dishes using black-eyed peas! I have no idea how they became so popular in Greece, but there you go. This black-eyed pea salad a Greek-inspired side dish I’ve done in various forms over the years. I love black-eyed peas because they cook very fast and need no pre-soaking the way a lot of regular beans do. My cooking method is a little unorthodox, but it’s a trick I picked up from the renowned French food scientist Herve This. This (pronounced TEE-S) says that all beans cook best beneath a boil: That means no simmering even, just steam. I cook all beans this way, but doing so means it can take hours and hours for some beans to soften. But black-eyed peas are often tender within 20 minutes. Why bother with this technique? Because it results in perfectly cooked beans that are tender but whole; you will get very few broken or dissolved beans this way. If you are in a hurry, go ahead and use canned beans (be sure to rinse them well) or make them in a pressure cooker. I also use sun-dried tomatoes preserved in oil here, which is important – don’t use totally dried tomatoes, as you want them to be sliceable, and you will use the oil in the salad. Can you substitute fresh tomatoes? By all means, especially when they are in season. I’ve played around with the green thing in this salad a lot, and have found that while spinach is a familiar green for people, almost anything works: Looseleaf lettuces, purslane, parsley, arugula, watercress, etc. A final tip: Don’t add the lemon juice until you serve the salad: It helps keep the greens bright.
