Black-eyed peas with Swiss chard and lemon (louvi)
Tender black-eyed peas tossed warm with garlicky Swiss chard, a big squeeze of lemon and plenty of good olive oil, a simple Cypriot dinner that tastes clean and bright.
- 25 min total
- 20 min hands-on
- Anyone can make this
- Serves 4
- About $1.55 a serving
- 300 calories
- Good the next day
- Vegetarian
Dolly says: I’d make this on a weeknight. It’s on the table in 25 minutes.
Ingredients
For 4 servings.
- 1 bunch Swiss chard
- 3 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
- 2 cans black-eyed peas, drained and rinsed
- 1 lemon, halved
- ½ cup feta cheese, crumbled (optional)
- 4 slices sourdough bread, for serving (optional)
From your pantry
- ¼ cup olive oil, divided
- 1 tsp salt, divided
- ¼ cup water
- ¼ tsp black pepper
Each serving has about 300 calories, 12 g protein, 34 g carbs and 15 g fat, and costs about $1.55 at typical US grocery prices. Both are estimates from what the recipe uses.
Missing something?
- No lemons? Limes work.
- No feta cheese? Goat cheese works.
- No sourdough bread? French bread works.
Steps
Tap an underlined word for a quick explanation.
Cut the chard stems away from the leaves. the stems thin and the leaves, keeping them separate.
Slice. Slicing means cutting food into flat pieces of about the same thickness. Even slices cook evenly, so none are raw while others burn.
How you’ll know: Lay a few side by side: they’re close to the same thickness from one end to the other.
Chop. Chopping means cutting food into bite-size pieces that don’t need to be neat. Keep them roughly the same size so everything cooks evenly.
How you’ll know: Your pieces are about half an inch and roughly alike, even if none of them are pretty.
Dolly’s tip: Stems take longer to cook, so they go in first.Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil in a large over medium heat. Add the garlic and chard stems and cook 4 minutes, until the stems .
Skillet. A skillet is a frying pan: wide and flat with low, sloped sides. The shape lets steam escape, so food browns instead of stewing.
How you’ll know: It’s the pan you’d fry an egg in, and a 10 or 12 inch one handles most recipes.
Softened. For vegetables it means cooked until they bend and lose their crunch; for butter, left out until it dents easily. Soft onions taste sweet, and soft butter mixes in smoothly.
How you’ll know: Onions squash easily against the pan with your spoon, and butter dents under a finger without looking greasy.
Medium heatTimer: 4 min
Add the chard leaves and ½ teaspoon salt and cook, stirring, 3 minutes, until .
Wilt. Wilting means cooking leafy greens just until they go soft and collapse. Greens shrink a lot, so a big pile of spinach becomes a small handful, and that’s normal.
How you’ll know: The leaves turn soft and deep green and slump into the pan, usually within a minute or two.
Medium heatTimer: 3 min
Add the black-eyed peas and water and cook 3 to 4 minutes, until hot.
Medium heatTimer: 3 min
Take the pan off the heat, squeeze in the lemon, with the rest of the oil, and with the pepper and the rest of the salt.
Drizzle. Drizzling means pouring a thin, slow stream over the top of something. A thin stream spreads a little flavor a long way.
How you’ll know: You see thin lines across the food, not a puddle collecting underneath.
Season. Seasoning means adding salt, pepper or spices to bring out a food’s flavor. A little at a few stages tastes better than a lot all at the end.
How you’ll know: When you taste it, it tastes bright and like itself, not flat and not salty.
Serve warm with feta over the top and bread on the side.
Crumble. Crumbling means breaking food into small, rough bits with your fingers or a spoon, like feta or ground meat in the pan. Small bits spread through the dish, so there’s some in every bite.
How you’ll know: The pieces are small and uneven, about pea-size, with no big clumps left.
Plan this in Dollop, and get the grocery list
Dollop puts this dinner on a night that suits your week, lists only what you still need to buy, and walks you through each step while you cook.
