Leftover cooked black-eyed peas — tomorrow’s salad

Black-eyed peas cooked for the soup — a spare bowl cooled in the cold. Tomorrow the hand reaches for the pot by itself. I slice onion into half-rings, stir it with oil and a drop of vinegar, add the peas and chopped herbs: a plate of cold salad for bread, without a second boil.

Leftover cooked black-eyed peas — tomorrow’s salad. Chickpeas in hummus are another pulse story; beans in chilli and quesadilla are about heat and a tortilla; pasta water is about sauce. Here peas already cooked go into the cold: a little acid and green — not a new packet of dressing and not the soup again.

If the peas are dry — another spoon of oil around the bowl. A sour smell from the box — I don’t rescue that bowl with salad. I’m not picking a “salad” grade from the rack: only what is already cooked at ours.

I don’t need another hot side from the same box. I need a cold bowl that can sit down at once. In your kitchen do black-eyed peas go into salad — or go back on the heat?