This year I was introduced to a little butter bean or pea call “Dixie Speckled” that is a relative to the lima bean. One of our local farmers decided to try out this little bean or pea (depending on what you “google”) which appears to thrive in heat! The size is small and the pods are not terribly easy to break into, but the work is worth the effort upon your first bite. Now don’t get me wrong, I love tender young butter beans and I’ll shell them until my fingernails are all gone, but these little beauties come in all different shades of reddish-purple when you first break them out of the shell and then they cook up more tender and buttery than any butter bean I’ve ever had. Mix them with some fresh corn that is barely cooked, raw shishito pepper, a squeeze of lime and a touch of olive oil (and a little non-local avocado). You have a light and healthy lunch when the temperatures soar past 100F! A little local bacon is also a nice touch to this salad if you have it around.
Beth’s Dixie Speckled Butter Bean & Corn Salad
Ingredients
- 1 cup of shelled, cooked dixie speckled butter beans
- 3/4 cup roasted or steamed corn (leftover from corn on the cob will work just fine)
- 2 tablespoons finely chopped sweet onion
- 1 teaspoon fresh finely chopped shishito peppers (jalapeno if you like hotter)
- Squeeze or two of lime juice (not much)
- Murrays River or Himalayan Sea Salt
- A dash of fresh ground pepper
- Salad greens (if you can find them this late in the summer)
- 1/2 Avocado chopped (optional)
Preparation
- Gently mix all of the ingredients except the salad greens and avocado together.
- Add the avocado last and gently turn it into the salad.
- Serve on small bed of “shade grown” summer salad greens.
