Boiled Peanut Salad

Remember I talked about a 'Peanut Salad' that my dad made when we had moonlight dinner parties ? Well, this time when I bought a bunch of fresh peanuts, I was sure to try this out. It has been atleast 12 yrs since I last tasted this salad and all that I remembered was that it was good & everybody insisted that my dad make this and his tomato soup at almost all the parties we had.... but had no idea what it contained. When asked, my dad was very surprised that I would ask him something so simple and remarked at how it isn't really a recipe but just some usual ingredients thrown together. I asked him to let me know what those usual ingredients are and a day later, we had a yummy dinner of Peanut Salad, Papaya Halwa & Banana-Mango Smoothie.

If you don't get fresh peanuts where you live (for us it's only seasonal and not available year round), you can check out this website where you can order online and it's home delivered.

Oh and this is my first Salad recipe on this blog ... As much as I want to eat healthy, i'm not a very salad person and there are only a few that I like. I created a category for Salads when I created the blog in the hopes that I would start consuming them more but after more than a year, here I am with my first Salad recipe :)

BOILED PEANUT SALAD


Ingredients:

Boiled, Shelled Peanuts - 1 cup
Cucumber - half, peeled & chopped
Tomato - 1 medium, chopped
Carrot - 1 medium, shredded
Onion - 1 medium, chopped (refer to tip below)
G. chillies - 2 to 3
Raisin - 1 to 2 tbsp (optional)
Coriander leaves - 3 tbsp, chopped
Salt & Pepper - to taste
Lime/Lemon - half or more (optional)

Method:
1) Pressure cook the peanuts (with shell) for 3 whistles. Remember to salt the water so the peanuts would've absorbed some salt. Allow to cool, shell and measure the peanuts. We need around a cup.

2) Toss all of the salad ingredients together. I added the raisinis only because I overzealously added around 5 chopped green chillies and the salad became very spicy so the raisins helped to balance that out. Omit that if you don't like it. Squeeze some lemon juice on top and serve.

TIP: Often, I find raw onions to be too sharp/pungent. So, when I add them to salads or raithas, I soak the chopped onions in a mixture of 1 tbsp white distilled vinegar, 1 tsp sugar, half tsp salt. I add enough water to just barely cover the onions and let the mixture rest for atleast 20 minutes before draining completely and adding to the salad or raitha.

Our dinner - Peanut Salad, Mango-Banana Smoothie & Papaya Halwa

I would like to send this salad as my entry to EC's WYF-Soups/Starters/Soups. Thank you EC for picking such a yummy theme.

Want to try something else with boiled peanuts? Check out - Verkadalai Kuzhambu