Pea Shoots, Mango and Smoked Chicken Salad

Mark Hix’s Pea Shoot Recipes

This is one of those salads that materialised from an almost empty fridge one sunny Sunday afternoon. I had a bit of Alex Jame’s little wallop goat’s cheese left from a dinner party, some new season peas and just went out in the garden and snipped off some pea shoots. Now as far as salad leaves go pea shoots are a real taste of spring and summer, in fact I grow peas and mange tout from seed for the tendrils’ or shoots and don’t really bother to let them form into pods.

Ingredients

60g or so of pea shoots, carefully washed and dried
90g shelled weight of fresh or frozen peas or petits pois, cooked
80g little wallop goats cheese or similar, at room temperature
A few sprigs of mint, small leaves reserved for the salad and larger ones for the dressing

for the dressing

2tbsp good quality cider vinegar
1tsp Tewksbury or Dijon mustard
6tbsp extra virgin rapeseed oil
2tbsp vegetable or corn oil
1tsp caster sugar
6-8 large mint leaves (see above)

First make the dressing. Blend all the ingredients in a liquidiser and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Mix a spoonful or so of the dressing with the drained warm peas and season with salt and pepper.

Lightly dress the pea shoots and arrange on a plate. Scatter on the peas and spoon over a little more dressing. Arrange the pieces of cheese on top and scatter the small mint leaves over.