Nigel Slater’s super quick pasta with peas, pappardelle and Parmesan

Today we reach the midway point in the working week, and maybe we need a bit of a carb boost to power us through to Friday. This triple-P plate of perfection – peas, pappardelle and Parmesan – should hit the spot, and you’ll only need five ingredients to pull it off.

Liquidising the peas is a lovely way to get a sauce to coat the pasta without adding cream. And if you don’t have access to fresh peas, don’t worry: Slater says it’s okay to use frozen. Just reduce the cooking time appropriately.

If you do use fresh, throw the washed pea pods into the stock to liven it up, or freeze them to add to your next batch of vegetable stock. – Marie-Claire Digby

A note on the recipes
Though all are plant based, the six recipes from Greenfeast that are appearing on irishtimes.com this week – one each day, from Monday to Saturday – are not vegan. They can, however, be rendered suitable for vegan diets with a bit of informed tweaking.

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NIGEL SLATER’S PEAS, PAPPARDELLE, PARMESAN

Quiet flavours
Serves two

Ingedients
600ml vegetable stock
300g peas (podded weight)
300g pappardelle
25g Parmesan, grated
200g fresh young sheep's or goat's cheese

Method
1 Put the vegetable stock on to boil. (You can use water instead of stock at a push.) Keeping a handful of raw peas to one side, cook the rest in the boiling stock for five to seven minutes, depending on their size. While the peas cook, boil the pappardelle for seven or eight minutes in generously salted water.

2 Put the peas and 150ml of their cooking liquor into a blender and process until smooth, introducing more stock as necessary to produce a thin, brightly flavoured sauce. Drain the pasta and return to the pan, pour in the pea sauce, scatter with the Parmesan and fold in. Check the seasoning. Divide between two deep plates.

3 Break the sheep's cheese into large pieces, scatter over the pasta with the reserved raw peas and serve.

Greenfeast: Spring, Summer, by Nigel Slater, is published by 4th Estate Books