Black-Eyed Pea Cakes with Salsa Mayonnaise

These are crispy, cornmeal-crusted, little cakes with a creamy centre, flavoured with sautéed onion, garlic, red pepper and jalapeño.

In the introduction to the recipe, the author suggests a few shortcuts “ using canned peas and replacing the salsa mayo with store-bought salsa. I had dried peas on hand so cooked some for this recipe but I did use a different salsa, though it was homemade, mainly because I couldn’t bring myself to serve 1 cup of mayo to 4 people!!

The cakes were very easy to make and held together quite well during cooking after a brief chill in the fridge (though you could just as easily make and chill these the night before).

The flavour of the cake was quite good but a little sweet…..black eyed peas are inherently sweet and the sautéed vegetables just added to that….. so what it really needed was something bright and acidic…..a fresh tomato salsa and a squeeze of lime were the perfect complements.