Next time you want to serve a bean dip, put down the hummus and make this faster-cooking Black-eyed Pea Dip. When making a bean dip, using fresh beans instead of canned yields superior results and cooking dried chickpeas for hummus is exhausting. The soaking, simmering, and removing the chickpea skins makes hummus lose its appeal quickly. In this recipe, once the peas are cooked (about one hour), you can simply throw everything into a food processor and pulse to your desired consistency.
Roasting the garlic mellows out its flavor and gives it a hint of sweetness as the extracted juices caramelize and the interiors soften. It only takes about 20 to 30 minutes to roast garlic and can happen while you’re simultaneously simmering the Black-eyed peas to completion. Instead of firing up a large oven in order to cook a couple tiny heads of garlic, it can be done in a toaster oven, compact convection oven, or you can even gently cook whole cloves on a dry pan over stovetop (aka. pan roasting).
In the same way hummus is served with endless choices of toppings, this bean dip works well on crackers or warmed pita topped with my Shoestring Fried Sweet Potatoes , or spread it as a layer in a plant-based sandwich or wrap.
Black-Eyed Pea Dip with Roasted Garlic
Ingredients for black-eyed pea dip
- 2 cups dry black-eyed peas (4 cups cooked)
- 10-15 cloves roasted garlic (usually 2 bulbs)
- ½ cup olive oil
- 1 ½ tsp kosher salt
- 3 whole Roma tomatoes, peeled
- 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
- 1 tablespoon black pepper
- 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
- 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
- 1/2 cup freshly chopped parsley, tightly packed
Instructions
- Bring black-eyed peas to a brief boil in salted water, then reduce heat to a simmer until tender (about 45 minutes to one hour).
- Meanwhile, slice off the top third of two heads of garlic crosswise. Coat it with olive oil and sprinkle with kosher salt and black pepper. Roast the garlic at 400 degrees in a toaster oven until the cloves are soft and slightly caramelized.
- Load the cooked black-eyed peas, roasted garlic, and all other ingredients in a food processor and pulse until thoroughly combined, and serve.
Yield: About 7 cups
