Risi E Bisi with Pea Shoot Pesto
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
LATIN NAME
Pisum sativum
SEASONALITY
June–August
MORE RECIPES
Garlicky pea ravioli with brown butter; Scallops with cauliflower purée and green peppercorns
I will always champion the superiority of fresh-picked peas over frozen ones, but only if the fresh ones are really fresh. And that basically means just-picked and eaten within a few hours, before their exquisitely leguminous natural sugars begin reverting to starch. Frozen peas, which are briefly blanched then whammed into a deep freeze almost as soon as they’re off the plant, are often vastly superior to large, old, mealy ‘fresh’ peas that may have been sitting around in their pods on a greengrocer’s shelf for far too long.
If you buy a packet of frozen peas, there’s a good chance they’ll be British: we grow a lot of them, our wind-scoured eastern seaboard offering their favourite dry-but-mild conditions. And an extremely handy ingredient they are – offering near-instant, vitaminaceous greenness at any time of the year. Frozen petits pois (which may be either a specific variety, or small specimens of a standard variety) barely even need cooking. You can simply let them defrost and use them. Or tip the frozen peas into a colander, pour boiling water over them and leave for a couple of minutes. This is a great start to a light and sweet pea soup or purée, or if you want to add the peas to a pasta dish, risotto or frittata.
But still, I’d never give up my tangled hazel-stick rows of curling pea vines – not for all the frozen peas in Lincolnshire. Everyone in my family loves eating raw baby peas and popping the first pods – pushing out the tiny green beads and munching them greedily is one of our favourite moments each summer. It’s usually a week or two into the harvest before we eat them any other way. But freshly picked raw baby peas are also beautiful tossed into a salad with crumbled fresh ricotta and snippets of ham, or whizzed into a raw soup with spinach, mint, avocado and lemon juice.
Some pick-your-own farms now offer peas among their crops. Otherwise, you can buy peas in the pod during their season – roughly June to August – at farmers’ markets, greengrocers and supermarkets. If they look fresh – vibrant, plump and bright green – or, even better, if someone can actually tell you when they were harvested, they are certainly worth buying (1kg pods yields around 400g peas). Simmer for about 5 minutes with a large sprig of mint then serve, dressed with butter, salt and black pepper. Or, for something completely different, try them in a pea and mint ice cream – a green, minty purée folded into a sweet custard and frozen.
The pods can be useful too. Add them to a simmering stock to give a layer of sweet flavour. Or make a pea pod soup – with pods, mint, potato, onion and stock – blending and passing through a sieve to take out the stringy pod fibres: a true thrifty classic.
As with broad beans, slightly tired fresh peas or mature specimens from the garden needn’t go to waste. Such veg patch veterans have a slightly floury quality, but they can work wonderfully in the right recipe. Once podded, I usually boil them for a good 10 minutes before puréeing them with mint or parsley to make soup, or a fantastic fresh pea version of mushy peas – blitzed up with sautéed onion, mint, garlic, butter and perhaps a little cheese too.
If you have room to grow your own peas – and you don’t need much of it for a 6-metre row of 40 plants, or a couple of 8-stick wigwams – it’s about as simple and rewarding as veg-growing gets. They will grow in most soils (just dig in some compost first) and can do well not only in conventional veg beds but also wide, fairly deep containers: roomy pots, half-barrels, even old sinks or baths will do. Train them up traditional multi-stemmed hazel sticks, or if you can only get bamboos, wrap the wigwams with pea-netting or chicken wire. Peas need plenty to cling on to.
Mid-season varieties are generally sweeter than the ‘earlies’. My favourites are ‘Kelvedon Wonder’, which is a fast and generous cropper, and ‘Saturn’, while ‘Douce Provence’ is a good petits pois variety. Growing your own also gives you access to the young, growing shoots of the pea plant, which can be nipped off and eaten. These tasty tendrils, with their concentrated pea flavour, are fantastic in a salad with some baby peas, a lemony dressing and lots of chives. They’re also great wilted in a little butter and served up in an omelette or as a simple side dish. But don’t get too enthusiastic about pea shoots or you won’t have any actual pea pods come harvest time.
Mangetout – literally ‘eat all’ – are generally tender, flat young pods, with tiny underdeveloped peas in them. They are almost always eaten whole. Personally I prefer the ‘sugarsnap’ type. The plumper pod is crisp and tender, like mangetout, but you get a rack of plump peas inside too: surely the best of both worlds? Very freshly picked, both types are great raw. And whether you are eating them raw or planning to cook them, it’s worth stripping the fibres from the shorter edge that runs along the inside, as it were, from the frilly-skirted nose to the pointy-tipped tail.
RISI E BISI WITH PEA SHOOT PESTO
This soupy, Venetian risotto is made for home pea-growers: as well as peas it uses both the pods (to form a lovely sweet stock) and baby pea shoots (in a pesto). However, you can make the dish using about 600ml good light vegetable stock instead, and any pesto – or just a final swirl of good oil. You can also use broad beans in this recipe: small fresh ones can be added straight to the risotto, though they may need a little more cooking than peas; older ones should be cooked and skinned first. Serves 2
200g peas in the pod (or 80g podded peas, fresh or frozen)
1 carrot, thinly sliced
4 spring onions, trimmed and sliced (trimmings saved)
1 bay leaf
1 tsp black peppercorns
A few parsley stalks (optional)
10g butter
2 tsp olive or rapeseed oil
1 garlic clove, sliced
100g arborio rice
25g Parmesan, Berkswell or hard goat’s cheese, finely grated
FOR THE PESTO
70g pine nuts
About 60g pea shoots
½ small garlic clove, chopped
Juice of ½ small lemon
120–150ml extra virgin olive or rapeseed oil
25g Parmesan, Berkswell or hard goat’s cheese, finely grated
Sea salt and black pepper
TO FINISH
50g mild, soft goat’s or ewe’s cheese
Extra virgin olive or rapeseed oil
Start with the pesto: toast the pine nuts in a dry pan over a medium-low heat until lightly coloured. Transfer to a plate and leave to cool completely.
Put the pea shoots and garlic into a food processor and pulse until finely chopped (or roughly chop, then pound with a pestle and mortar). Add the pine nuts, lemon juice and some salt and pepper. Process briefly then, with the motor running (or stirring, if using a pestle and mortar), slowly pour in the extra virgin oil until the pesto is the texture you like – you may not need all of it. Stir in the cheese (and a trickle more oil if needed), then taste and add a little more salt, pepper and lemon juice as needed.
Pod the peas and set them aside. Roughly chop the pods and put them in a pan with the carrot, spring onion trimmings, bay, peppercorns and parsley stalks, if using. Pour on 750ml water, bring to a simmer and cook for 25–30 minutes. Strain, return to the pan and keep hot over a very low heat.
Heat a medium pan over a medium heat and add the butter and oil. When bubbling, add the spring onions and cook, stirring regularly, for 3–4 minutes. Add the garlic and rice and cook for a further minute.
Now add one-third of the hot pea stock and stir well. Bring back to a simmer and cook, stirring occasionally, until the stock is absorbed. Add another third and repeat, stirring regularly. Add the remaining stock along with the peas, and cook for 3–4 minutes or until the rice and peas are just tender, and the risotto has a loose consistency, almost like a soup. Take off the heat and stir in the grated cheese and some salt and pepper.
Spoon the risotto into warm bowls and top with crumbled cheese and a generous spoonful of pesto. Finish with a few more fresh pea shoots if you have them.