Serves: 6

What an absolutely lovely, fresh way to kick off a lazy Sunday lunch.

Nat and I never went to the restaurant Pinbone, though we did have dinner at their successor – I Maccheroni – a few weeks back and it was a really lovely Italian meal.

For this dish, I started with the foccacia and as the non-bread maker in the family, this turned out to be a real trick. Though not in the tricky vein.

Follow the instructions, lose faith at some point, though watch the dough transform and transform and wow. An absolutely wonderful base for the dish, with just enough oil to be interesting, a cracking crust and a soft interior. Yum.

It’s then the simplicity of the ricotta and the peas and beans. You don’t really need four varieties here and I swapped out Italian beans for the broadbeans. Though add the olive oil, lemon juice and then the mint and a big paste of ricotta, and with a glass of Champagne… this is why life is so good.

And can be so simple.

If I showed up to lunch and was handed one of these with a glass of wine, wow. What a way to set the bar and clear intentions of the afternoon ahead.

Ingredients

50gm sugarsnap peas, coarsely chopped
50gm frozen baby peas
50gm podded broad beans (about 150gm unpodded) – I substituted Italian beans and coarsely chopped
50gm podded edamame*
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1 tbsp olive oil
150gm ricotta
1/4 cup mint, coarsely torn

Focaccia

460gm baker’s flour
1 tsp brown sugar
7gm (1 sachet) dried yeast
1/4 c extra-virgin olive oil, plus extra to serve

Method

1. For the focaccia, combine 450gm flour and 1 1/2 tsp salt in an electric mixer fitted with a dough hook. Lightly whisk remaining flour, sugar and dried yeast in a separate bowl with 300ml lukewarm water, then leave until bubbles appear (5 – 7 minutes). Add oil to the yeast mixture, then, with the mixer on low speed, add yeast mixture to the flour and knwad until smooth and elastic (8 – 9 minutes). Transfer to a lightly oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap and leave in a warm place until nearly doubled in size (20 – 30 minutes). Preheat the over to 230x. Gently knock back the dough, cover and prove until nearly doubled in size again (10 – 15 minutes). Transfer to a well-oiled 12cm x 23cm load pan**. Cover and leave to prove until about 1cm below top of tin (15 minutes), then bake until golden brown and the focaccia sounds hollow when tapped on the base (25 – 30 minutes). Cool on a rack (about 1 hour), then cut into 12 slices.
2. Brinf a saucepan of salted water to the boil and blanch peas and bans for 20 – 30 seconds until bright green and still crunchy. Drain, then peel broadbeans and mix with lemon juice, oil and remaining peas and beans in a bowl and season to taste.
3. Toast/grill the focaccia slices until well toasted.
4. Spread the ricotta on focaccia, spoon pea and bean mixture on top, scatter with mint, extra virgin olive oil and serve.

* Frozen section of the supermarket.

** We’ve been baking our focaccias in a large, heavy skillet to great effect. Just keep and eye on it. These skillets get so hot, it brings forward the cooking time. This focaccia was done in 18 minutes in the skillet.