When you go to a restaurant and look at a menu, you know almost immediately what you think looks good on the menu. Picking recipes is the same thing. If you are just learning to cook though, picking the right recipe is not always so simple. So you have to rely on the source of the recipe as your guide.

When I first saw this Pea Salad recipe, I was a bit skeptical about the combination of ingredients. But, much to my surprise, it really works!

• 16-ounces of frozen peas, unthawed
• 6 ounces of smokehouse almonds, chopped
• 8 ounces of water chestnuts, chopped
• 2/3 cup of mayonnaise
• 2 tsp of yellow curry powder

Combining smokehouse almonds with peas, curry powder and water chestnuts is most unusual. But the source of this recipe always has utterly fantastic, fairly advanced recipes, so I thought I would give this unbelievably simple recipe a try. Plus any recipe/blog post that generates 40 comments needs some serious attention!

With only minor changes to the original recipe, I have adapted this really tasty recipe to suit the startcooking.com crowd. I do hope you enjoy it as much as David and I have.

The original recipe calls for chopped green onions which I have omitted from my version. I wanted a recipe that did not require buying any fresh ingredients from the grocery store. All of the ingredients in this recipe can be bought well in advance and just pulled out of the freezer (the peas), the refrigerator (the mayo), and the cupboard (the water chestnuts, almonds, and curry powder).

Let’s startcooking!

Smokehouse almonds tend to be really salty, so you need to rinse off some (not all!) of the salt. Give it a quick rinse under the water.

Then tip the almonds out onto a paper towel to absorb the excess water.

Roughly chop the almonds. Do this slowly with one hand holding the handle of the knife while the other hand holds down the tip of the knife. Leave the tip in place and just slice through the almonds by moving the handle.

Drain the water chestnuts.

And roughly chop them as well.

Measure the curry powder and the mayonnaise.

According to one commenter at Simply Recipes, if you don’t like curry powder you can substitute it with Garam Masala.

(Garam Masala is a blend of spices which includes cinnamon and nutmeg.)

Put the mayonnaise in a small bowl with the curry powder (or Garam Masala).

Mix these two ingredients together

Put into a large mixing bowl the FROZEN peas, the chopped almonds and the water chestnuts.

Gently mix these three ingredients together.

Add the curried mayonnaise.

Gently mix everything together.

This is what is looks like all mixed. Taste it and see if it needs more salt and a few grinds of fresh pepper.

Store the salad in the refrigerator until you are read to serve it. If you plan on serving this salad immediately, let it sit for about 15 minutes in order for the peas to defrost.

Enjoy!

You can view and print this recipe here.

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