Chopped Sugar Snap Pea Salad

January 6, 2022
by Cindy Williams
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- Salad
Cuisine: Comfort Food, Steakhouse Cuisine
Difficulty: Easy

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Prep Time

30 minutes
Cook Time

Roasting garlic is about 30 minutes
Serving

1
View

359

CHOPPED is a show on the Food Network that sometimes drives me crazy. Four competing chefs open their baskets and find all sorts of odd ingredients that do NOT go together sensibly. They have to make an appetizer, a main course and dessert out of things that might have come from the pantry of the Addams Family. Who can make dessert with bacon and cricket powder? Or an appetizer out of fudge ripple ice cream and lamb chops? Nevertheless, the show is inspiring, particularly when you are tired after work, and have a hodge-podge of seemingly incompatible ingredients in your frig. This salad resulted from just such a night when I was too tired to go to the grocery store, and believe me that means I was exhausted. I opened the frig and saw a package of sugar snap peas from the weekend when I thought I was going to pan saute some red snapper and make a beurre blanc sauce (but didn’t). I had a head of lettuce intended for a BLT that never materialized. I had cherry tomatoes and red onions because I pretty much always have those. And I had some sourdough bread and pecorino butter left over from a grilled cheese sandwich that I’d eaten the night before. What did all that add up to? A CHOPPED Sugar Snap Pea salad. A word about the Sugar Snap Peas: I do not own a microwave so I steamed these for a few minutes and they were still bright green and crunchy (perfect). I chopped them and added them to my salad then tossed everything with a mustardy – sweetish vinaigrette. This salad turned out to be so delicious I intend to have it again some night, maybe stacked and served in a ring mold… with bacon? And cricket powder? Well, only if Gomez and Morticia are coming over.

Directions

The point of this recipe is the sweet crunchy steamed Sugar Snap peas chopped. They really make this salad.

Step 1

Roast the garlic. Put it in a small dish or pan and pour olive oil all over it and roast it at 350 for about 30 minutes. You'll know it's done when the cloves pop out, you have a beautiful caramel color and your house smells great.

Step 2

Steam the Sugar Snap Peas. The package says to microwave them. Don't. Get your little vegetable steamer out and do this the right way. You probably need to steam them about 5 minutes, not long. Watch them and test them. They should be bright green and crunchy. Let them cool and then chop them roughly.

Step 3

Prepare tomatoes. Slice them in half and salt them.

Step 4

Slice a red onion thinly. You'll add them to your salad according to your taste. I love red onions.

Step 5

Drain a can of Cento tuna.

Step 6

Either dip the sourdough cubes in the melted butter or slather the butter on with a knife. Spread the cubes on a baking sheet and bake at 375 until they are light brown but still chewy. Don't dry them out.

Step 7

Make the vinaigrette: mix all ingredients in a large Pyrex measuring cup and whisk, whisk, whisk.

Step 8

Prepare the lettuce: Wash it and spin it dry in a salad spinner. Tear or chop into bite size pieces.

Step 9

Put the lettuce, tomatoes, red onions, and chopped peas in a bowl. Coat with dressing and toss with your hands. Plate the salad and add the tuna and sourdough croutons. Grind some pepper over the salad.