Pea, Mint and Avocado Salad

In How to Eat I wrote about my Great Aunt Myra’s Pea, Mint and Avocado Salad, which we all considered rather fabulously exotic when she came up with it in the Seventies. I’ve tinkered with it over the many years since, and this – give or take – is the version I make now, and I make it often. When I say “give or take”, it’s simply because I don’t always use the same mix of salad leaves (though I do like it to include a few curling pea shoots if possible) and don’t expect you to either; I’ve given rough amounts in the recipe so you have an idea of how much is needed, but even then, you can freestyle as wished.

While there’s nothing to stop you adding some cold chicken, prawns, feta or goat’s cheese to turn it into a main meal, I generally serve it as a side salad, though when I wrote about it all those years ago, it was, indeed, as a starter. I’ve utterly given up on starters since then. By the way, I find it very much easier to get the peas-a-steeping in the dressing in advance and then add the leaves and avocado at the last minute. I should add that the beauteous salad in this picture is actually still waiting for a final toss with the last bit of dressing in the mixing bowl: I didn’t want the leaves to wilt while it waited for its close-up!  

In How to Eat I wrote about my Great Aunt Myra’s Pea, Mint and Avocado Salad, which we all considered rather fabulously exotic when she came up with it in the Seventies. I’ve tinkered with it over the many years since, and this – give or take – is the version I make now, and I make it often. When I say “give or take”, it’s simply because I don’t always use the same mix of salad leaves (though I do like it to include a few curling pea shoots if possible) and don’t expect you to either; I’ve given rough amounts in the recipe so you have an idea of how much is needed, but even then, you can freestyle as wished.

While there’s nothing to stop you adding some cold chicken, prawns, feta or goat’s cheese to turn it into a main meal, I generally serve it as a side salad, though when I wrote about it all those years ago, it was, indeed, as a starter. I’ve utterly given up on starters since then. By the way, I find it very much easier to get the peas-a-steeping in the dressing in advance and then add the leaves and avocado at the last minute. I should add that the beauteous salad in this picture is actually still waiting for a final toss with the last bit of dressing in the mixing bowl: I didn’t want the leaves to wilt while it waited for its close-up!