I love legumes.. Don’t you? Especially during summer, I think they are a fine source of protein and energy. In my country, Greece, we often make black eyed peas as a salad especially during summertime.
Now, due to various dietary restrictions of mine, I try to add ingredients that can substitute the lack of salt - by giving a somewhat twist in my dishes. Paprika is that kind of ingredient (along with others such as lemon, vinegar and so on). In this dish I add turmeric and paprika - complying at the same time to the Hive Top Chef competition ingredient - so as to give extra vitamins and flavor! And my paprika has an extra smoked flavor.
Ingredients: 250gr dried black-eyed peas, any available vegetables – I used various peppers (5-6), 2 eggplants, 1 onion, ½ tsp paprika, ¼ tsp turmeric, black pepper, ½ cup of extra virgin olive oil (about 4 tbsp for the roasted vegetables, some during roasting the vegetables and a bit for serving, that is about ½ cup in total), salt (I don’t put any), a nice flavorful vinegar – about 2 tbsp, ½ cup of chopped parsley and optionally some avocado in serving
There are two parallel cooking procedures in this dish.
For the legumes: You will need a pressure cooker (or not. A normal pot is fine to boil legumes too). Fill your pressure cooker with about 2ltrs of cold water to sufficiently cover 250 gr of dried black-eyed peas. Place it on high fire, close the pressure cooker and once it starts to whistle, lower the heat to low. Let the legumes simmer for 20 min. Then, carefully open your pressure cooker and check they are done – or nearly done. Drain the black-eyed peas and again fill in the pressure cooker with hot water, add the black-eyed peas, 1/4 tsp paprika and 1/4 tsp turmeric and let it simmer for another 10min. Drain the black-eyed peas again and put them on the side to cool down.
For the vegetables: You will need a tray to roast your vegetables in the oven. Spread some grease proof paper (to avoid lots of washing!) and then cut your peppers into big chunks, your eggplants in slices and the onion in 2 or 4 pieces and spread them on your tray. Oil your vegetables with olive oil and the remaining paprika. Put in pre-heated oven in 180 C for an hour and let them roast. Take them out of the oven, cut them in small pieces and place them in a container (to store the remaining in fridge), add some olive oil, a nice vinegar, parsley, salt and pepper and mix well.
In order to serve: put 1,5 cup of black-eyed peas in a plate, add some mixture of vegetables (about 100gr) and mix well. Add some olive oil and a touch of vinegar, salt and pepper according to your preference. As topping you can add some parsley and some avocado slices.
Enjoy!
