Easy Tomato Salad with White Acre Peas is full of fresh tomato goodness with two kinds of tomatoes, white acre peas, bacon, and homemade blue cheese dressing.
To cook the peas, add the ham hock, peas, thyme sprig, kosher salt, and pepper to a small saucepan over medium-high heat. Add just enough water to cover the peas and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to low and let the peas simmer for about 15 minutes or until they are just tender. The fresher the peas are, and the smaller they are, the less time they will need to cook.
When the peas are done, remove from the heat and drain. Set aside.
To make the blue cheese dressing, add the blue cheese crumbles, sour cream, buttermilk, mayonnaise, white wine vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, and black pepper to a mason jar and shake well. Refrigerate the dressing until you are ready to use it.
To assemble the salad, season the tomato slices and cherry tomato halves with salt and pepper. Take the tomato slices and divide among four plates. Place the cherry tomatoes halves around each stack of tomato slices. Top each tomato stack with ¼ of the white acre peas. Add the crumbled bacon and top with the Blue Cheese Dressing and chopped parsley if using. Serve immediately
Notes
You can substitute a package of dry ham flavored concentrate made by Goya for the ham hock.Just about any type of cowpea or field pie can be substituted for the white acre peas. This salad is best eaten the day it is made.