Southern Salad

I tend to favor salads with heft, but not necessarily in the form of meat. I prefer pasta, rice, potato and bean salads. This bean salad suddenly shows up at our table at least twice a year, signaling the onset of spring or summer. It's cool and crisp, spicy and sharp. The heft appears as black-eyed peas, which I cannot usually locate on the canned shelves, (only dried, unless I'm in a health-food store).

This Black-Eyed Pea Salad recipe is from Sunset magazine. There are bountiful similar black-eyed pea salad recipes out there, but I like this one's coolness of the tomato and cucumber, and the addition of cilantro and serrano.

I always make it with one large modification: reduce the onion by one-half or more. Be sure to follow the instructions and rinse the onion to deaden the sharpness. It calls for lemon juice, but I prefer lime. Welcome Spring!