Gingered Pea Tea Sandwiches with Ricotta {the food matters project}

This is a pinkies up kinda sandwich, and don’t you let anyone try to tell you otherwise.

It is best paired with petit fours, clotted cream, and as ridiculous a piece of haute headwear as you can manage before the USCIS ousts you from the country for disturbance of the peace and you are forced to beg for amnesty in the only country that will support, nay encourage, the wearing of such a spectacle of a headpiece.

Or…you can bring it to work for lunch and, when when one of your coworkers raises his eyebrows with an air of disdain and disbelief as if to say. “You brought a sandwich?”

(Because if there’s one thing you are known for, it is not the fact that you bring normal, run-of-the-mill food ever at all not even once.)

You can pick up a triangle between your thumb and forefinger. Pop that pinkie like it’s hot.  Put on your best Queen Elizabeth stare.

And reply (without words).  “Don’t be such an arse.”

Because with the pea, mint and ginger mash-up on one half and a good creamy ricotta smear on the other, this sandwich is anything but ordinary

It’s a tea sandwich for a new age.  One where cucumber and butter just don’t cut it anymore.

And while I can’t say for sure that Her Majesty would approve 100% of such leading-edge fare at the high tea table…

…it’s also possible that she’d knight you for it.

Dame Joanne Eats Well.  That has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?

Gingered Pea Tea Sandwiches with Ricotta
Makes 4, adapted from The Food Matters Project

Ingredients

• 2 cups fresh or thawed frozen peas
• 2 tbsp softened butter or olive oil
• 1 tbsp minced ginger
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh mint
• salt and black pepper
• 1 cup part-skim ricotta
• 8 slices whole wheat sandwich bread

Instructions

1. Mash the peas with the butter or oil and ginger until the mixture is pasty but not smooth.  Add the mint and sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste.
2. Smear 1/4 of the filling on 4 of the bread slices.  Smear 1/4 cup of ricotta on each of the other 4 bread slices.  Put one ricotta-smeared slice on each pea-smeared slice to form a sandwich.  Cut each into quarters on the diagonal and serve.

For the original recipe and to see what other tea sandwich suggestions Bittman had, check out Aura’s blog!  And to see how each of the other Food Matters Project participants fared with this recipe, click here.