"I eat my peas with honey,
I've done it all my life,
It makes the peas taste funny
but it keeps them on the knife!"
- Anon.
Well, I do eat my peas with honey when I put them in salads, and that's just what I did the other day when I felt like inventing a new chicken salad for the Sicilian summer:
Pea-super* salad
2 tablesp balsamic vinegar
8 chicken breast escalopes, pounded very thin by your butcher
300 gr fresh or frozen peas plus mint sprig
a goodly chunk of Sicilian peppered Pecorino, cubed
6 - 8 plums, sliced
100 gr pack rocket leaves
a handful of other salad leaves of your choice
a handful of basil leaves, torn
about 8 mint leaves, torn
2 tablesp olive oil
Dressing:
2 tablesp olive oil
1 tablesp honey
1 tablesp balsamic vinegar
seasalt and black pepper
Marinate the chicken escalopes in the balsamic vinegar for at least 2 hours, then lift the chicken pieces out and leave them on kitchen paper.
Cook the peas in salted water with a sprig of mint until they are just tender, then rinse them in cold water.
Drain the peas and put them into a large salad bowl with the Pecorino, plums, salad leaves and herbs. Put the bowl in the fridge.
Make the dressing by simply mixing all the ingredients together well and put this in the fridge, too.
Heat the oil on a ridged griddle pan and cook the chicken escalopes on it - about 1 minute per side. As they are cooked, lift them onto a plate and leave to cool. When you can handle them, cut them into small pieces with a kitchen scissors and add to the salad bowl. Just before serving, give the dressing a final whisk with a fork, pour it over the salad ingredients and toss well.
Buon appetito.
*A pea-souper was a thick, London fog which was so polluted that it was said to look like yellow pea soup. I never saw one, as they were largely a product of an age of heavy industry and coal fires. However, when I was a child I heard my parents talking about them and I thought the fog had got its name because it was so cold and miserable outside that it made you crave a warming pea soup!
