Belly of the Beest

Sweet Pea Cocktail by Kathy and Martin

We had this dinner party a long time ago so I’m sorry for the delay! It was a really tasty party with a much wider variety of dishes than I thought we would have. It was a little too early to have garden fresh peas, but we made do with frozen and the results were delicious! Today we are having an edible flower themed dinner party so I’m excited to eat and photograph tonight! Here are some photos and some recipes from the last party.

Nick and I made two main dishes: A savory pea pudding we found on this website   and a Saffron Rice with Peas and Cashews from this site.

Savory Pea Pudding--It re-heats very well!

Savory Pea Pudding: Budín de Chícharo

This is a Mexican classic, which can also be made by substituting corn or carrots for the peas. The recipe is adapted from The Essential Cuisines of Mexico by Diana Kennedy. Although it calls for sugar, this is a first course or side dish, rather than a dessert.

Ingredients

• 2 pounds fresh or frozen peas
• 3 eggs, separated
• ½ cup sugar
• 2/3 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled
• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 4 ounces Chihuahua or gouda cheese, grated
• 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder

Preparation

Preheat the oven to 450º F. Pass the peas through a food mill or process in a processor.

Setting the whites aside, beat the egg yolks in a large bowl until they are thick. Add the sugar and beat until well incorporated.

Add the butter alternately with the flour, beating well after each addition. Stir in the pea pulp, salt, cheese and baking powder.

Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the pea mixture. Pour the mixture into a buttered 8 inch square baking dish.

Place on a baking tray and bake for 10 minutes. Lower heat to 350ºF and continue cooking for about 40 minutes longer. The top and sides will be brown and spongy to the touch, and the insides should remain moist. Serves 6 as a first course or side dish.

Saffron Rice with Cashews and Peas

Saffron Rice with Peas and Cashews
serves 4-6
1 tablespoon oil
2 cups Basmati rice, well-rinsed and washed
1/2 teaspoon (2 pinches) saffron threads
1 cup unroasted, lightly salted cashew halves
1 cup frozen organic peas
3 1/2 cups water
1/2 teaspoon garam masala
1 teaspoon salt, or to taste

Wash and drain rice. Heat the oil over medium-high heat in a 4-quart pot. Add the rice and fry a couple minutes. Add the saffron threads and cashew halves and fry for another minute. Add the peas, fry for a few moments, then add the water, stir, and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer, cover, and cook for 18-20 minutes.

Take off the lid and turn the heat off. Stir in the garam masala and salt to taste. Let the rice sit to “dry” for a few minutes. Serve.

If we make this dish again I would double the garam masala and add and other ½ cup of peas and cashews. It was too much rice with not enough of the other ingredients.

Kathy and Martin made two drinks (featured in the first photo of this post) one with alcohol and one without. Here is the recipe in Martin’s words:

SWEET PEA COCKTAIL (not imaginatively named, but whatevs)

I found this on the wedding site The Knot, of all places, and executed it with minimal variation:

a bunch of sugar snap-peas

a 750-ml bottle of shochu

jasmine tea

agave syrup

A couple of days prior to the event, we opened a bottle of shochu and stuffed about six snap peas into it to infuse.  (I lightly crushed them a little first.) The cocktail as I made it was 1.5 oz infused shochu, .75 oz brewed and cooled jasmine tea, and a drizzle of agave syrup, shaken with ice and served on the rocks with a toothpicked snap-pea as a garnish.  Pretty good, I thought.

SNAP-PEA MOCKTAIL –Okay, this one was kind of weird.  I took about a cup of snap-peas and slaughtered them in the food processor.  Then I took about a half-tablespoon of wheatberries and roasted them in a dry pan until they were dark brown.  (The idea was to suggest the roast-grain flavor of the shochu.)  I put these and the processed peas in a glass pitcher and poured like two cups of boiling water over them, then let these steep for a half-hour or so.  Then I strained everything through an old (but clean!) T-shirt.

The mocktail was a shot of the chilled pea juice plus a shot of the chilled jasmine tea (see above) plus a half-shot of star-anise-&-lavender-infused simple syrup, shaken with ice, served on the rocks, snap-pea garnish.  It tasted . . . healthy.

Green Pea Pancakes

GREEN PEA CAKE WITH STRAWBERRY ICE CREAM

This was inspired by a dessert from a restaurant called Felidia that I found some pictures of online;but our version was probably rather different:

8 oz sugar snap-peas

2 c frozen peas

6 tbsp half-&-half

2 eggs

1/4 c flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp sugar

pinch of salt

butter for skillet

We boiled some water and cooked the snap-peas for a couple of minutes to soften them up, then removed them into an ice bath and blanched the peas.  Then I accidentally slung a bunch of peas across the kitchen.  (This was not intrinsic to the process.)  Then we mashed the peas with a fork.

We put the snap-peas in a food processor with the half-&-half and processed them till smooth, as they say.  Then we added the eggs, flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt, and processed them to make a smooth battery-type batter.  Then we folded this into the mashed peas.

Were I to do this again, I think I’d process at least half of the peas, as well, instead of just fork-mashing them.  This would, I believe, enable smaller, crisper, more maneuverable cakes.

But I digress.  We melted some butter in a big skillet, poured the batter in about a tablespoon at a time, and basically cooked these rascals like little pancakes until they were browned on both sides.  Then we let them cool a little — b/c you know how I am about melting ice cream — and used them to make little ice cream sandwiches with sliced fresh strawberries and strawberry ice cream.  The result was . . . colorful, if nothing else.

Pea Dinner Party plate

Chris made chickpea pancakes and brought a couple of chutneys and spreads for on top of them. Very tasty!

Heather and Fernando brought a delicious roast chickpea appetizer (in the center of the plate) and made chickpea chocolate chip cookies that were nutty and sweet. All in all a great party! I can’t wait for the next one!

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