Celebrating spring with broad bean and pea pesto

One of the most beautiful things about spring is the way all plants just leap forth into life and grow with such exuberance. Virtually overnight, my peas and broad beans quit moping, doubled in height, burst into flower and suddenly, there's little pods everywhere!

Broad bean plants at my community garden plot

Broad beans and peas are both legumes, which means they add nitrogen to the soil as they grow – this is the stuff that helps plants produce strong leafy growth. You can use them as a green manure to improve your soil. Simpy grow them until the plant is about 30cm tall then chop it up and dig it into the soil while it’s at its nitrogen-fixing best. You need to do this before they flower as that reduces the amount of nitrogen they put into the soil by up to 95 per cent. Broad beans and peas can be planted at the start of winter for an early spring crop, or in August/September for a late spring/early summer crop.

Amazing scarlet broad bean flowers. The flowers are usually white.

If you’d rather eat them, leave them to flower – these will turn into the pods that you eat. Pick the pods young and munch on them raw, in the shell or out. If you leave them on the plant for a few more days, they will get a lot bigger and a little tougher so they will benefit from being shelled and cooked for a few minutes - steamed, boiled, sautéed with a little garlic and oil, or stir-fried. If you’d like to save them for later, blanch the shelled beans and peas (plunge in boiling water for 30 seconds then immerse in icy cool water and drain), put them in a zip-lock bag and freeze – they’ll last for months this way.

Pea and broad bean pods

Shelled broad beans

For this lovely meal, I baked up a batch of crackers using this super quick and healthy recipe (1 tablespoon of chia seeds soaked in 3 tbsp of water for five minutes makes a great egg-free alternative) with some fresh rosemary thrown in. I then smushed up the below pesto, dolloped it on the crackers and there it was, the perfect spring snack. 

Broad bean and pea pesto

Makes 2 healthy serves

Place a handful each of shelled beans, peas and cashews in the food processor or mortar and pestle. Add half an avocado, a crushed garlic clove, a good pinch each of salt and pepper, a squeeze of lemon and a seriously good slug of olive oil. Pulse (or pound with the pestle) until you’ve got the desired consistency – chunky, smooth or somewhere in between.

Serve on bread, with crackers or stirred through pasta or zoodles.

Broad bean and pea pesto with homemade crackers

Basil pesto that breaks the rules

Is there any food that better sums up summer than homemade pesto, made from fresh-picked basil, with a good kick of garlic and the decadent, melt-in-your-mouth flavour and texture of pine nuts.
 

I’m obsessed with pesto. This year I’ve grown six clumps of basil so I can make enough pesto to last for months after our frosty Canberra nights wipe out the poor plants. That said, not a single jar has lasted more than a couple of days so far – it’s just so good; on pasta, on home grown tomatoes and by the spoonful.
 

The recipe is spectacularly simple. Fill your blender with basil, chuck in a couple of handfuls of pine nuts, and add one to six peeled garlic cloves depending on taste and likelihood of breathing on another person after eating said pesto. Season to taste with salt and pepper then pour over a seriously good glug of extra virgin olive oil. Blend for a minute or so, scraping down the sides if needed until you’ve got your preferred consistency.
 

At this point you’ll usually lightly stir in a handful of parmesan, but I no longer bother as (le mie scuse più sincere to Italian readers) I’ve decided that pesto is far better without it! With so much good fat in the form of the pine nuts and olive oil, a parmesan-free pesto is just so much creamier but lighter.

If worried about the cost of pine nuts, you can use other nuts like almonds, macadamias or cashews. You won’t get the same divine result but it will still make a great sauce. I picked up a kilo of pine nuts without having to re-mortgage my house by buying them from an online Australian company, vastly cheaper than those tiny packets found in the supermarkets.
 

Any Italians still reading may want to look away now, because here comes confession numero due: I prefer pesto on zucchini pasta more than pasta tradizionale – and this comes from someone who’s eaten pesto spaghetti in the mother country.

Zucchini pasta is made by putting a fresh zucchini through a spiralizer, a gadget

that turns it into ribbons. You can alternatively shave the zucchini with an apple peeler, or just dice it. Fry it for just a minute or two in olive oil so it doesn’t get soft, toss the pesto through and it’s ready to serve. The flavour and texture are entirely dissimilar to real pasta but give it a chance – zucchini pasta is nutty and satisfying without weighing you down.
 

If that’s too much too bear, try spooning the pesto over the largest, reddest, meatiest tomato you can find. Whether the tomato is raw, roasted or grilled, the pesto will bring out the sweetness and flavour like nothing else.

I’d love to hear from you – how do you like your pesto?