Beans around here almost always mean red or white, but lately, I’ve been geeking out on a delicate little legume we don’t eat often enough—lady peas.
Earlier this year, I attended the media premiere of the LPB documentary Deeply Rooted*, the story of master gardener John Coykendall’s fight to save Southern heirloom beans and peas. The accompanying lunch was prepared by Chef Celeste Gill, chef/spokeswoman for the Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry and founder of Chef Celeste Bistro at the Main Street Market.
Gill was asked to create a menu from Camellia Beans products; the New Orleans-based company was one of the film’s sponsors. Her entrée was classic red beans and rice with sausage. She also made a cozy, creamy version of home-cooked lima beans. The standout dish, in my opinion, was a Lady Cream Pea Salad with crumbled feta and a sweet-tangy vinaigrette.
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Call them lady peas, cream peas or lady cream peas, these tiny, mildly flavored field peas are a summertime favorite in other parts of the South, often cooked with pork like other legumes or incorporated into cool salads or served with summer tomatoes. They’re part of the larger field pea family—a group that also includes black-eyes, crowders, butter beans and purple hulls. I reached out to Gill to find out how she made this yummy dish.
“I treated the lady peas the way I like to prepare black-eyed peas,” she says. “Almost like a salsa.”
Gill says she cooked dried Camellia Lady Cream Peas until al dente and cooled them overnight. To the peas, she added chopped onion, bell pepper, scallion and crumbled feta, and dressed the mixture in a simple vinaigrette of white vinegar, sugar, salt, pepper and olive oil, a common formula in traditional Southern salads. It was light, satisfying and packed with flavor. Gill told me last week she plans to add a lady pea salad to her restaurant’s Lenten menu, which launches this week. Keep an eye out for it, or make this version at home.
Lady Cream Pea Salad
Servings: 4-6
3 cups cooked vegetarian lady cream peas (recipe follows)
1 cup chopped fresh tomato
½ cup chopped green bell pepper
½ cup chopped orange, red or yellow bell pepper
1/3 cup chopped scallion (green and white parts)
¼ cup crumbled feta, or more to taste
1/3 cup white vinegar dressing (recipe follows), or more to taste
Combine the lady cream peas and next five ingredients in a medium bowl. Drizzle the dressing over the mixture and blend gently until the dressing is well distributed.
Vegetarian Lady Cream Peas
16-ounce bag lady cream peas (such as Camellia)
10 cups water
1 onion, chopped
1 stalk celery with leaves, chopped
1 large garlic clove, minced
1 large dried bay leaf
Kosher salt and fresh cracked pepper to taste
Rinse the peas. In a Dutch oven or large pot, combine the peas with the water and bring to a boil. Add the remaining ingredients and simmer until done but still just firm (about 1 hour). Makes 6 cups. Use 3 cups for the salad recipe, and use the remaining 3 for a warm and savory dish or soup. Or, simply divide this recipe in half.
White vinegar dressing
¼ cup white vinegar
1 tablespoon sugar
¼ cup olive oil, plus 1 tablespoon
Kosher salt and fresh cracked pepper to taste
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In a medium bowl, combine the vinegar and sugar and whisk well. Add the olive oil slowly until combined. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
*A note about the film: Produced by independent producer Christina Melton, the documentary explores Coykendall’s rigorous preservation of heirloom seeds across the South, particularly in Washington Parish. Since 1973, Coykendall has documented the stories of farmers and backyard growers in Washington Parish in a series of 80 meticulously handwritten journals that include drawings. Coykendall is the master gardener at the farm-to-table culinary resort, Blackberry Farm in the Great Smoky Mountains, and a classically trained artist. Find out more about the documentary here.
Maggie Heyn Richardson is a regular 225 contributor and the author of Spatula Diaries, a food blog that features local Louisiana ingredients. Reach her at hungryforlouisiana.com.