Chinmayee Manjunath

I never was a breakfast person. It was not a meal I acknowledged except when it was forced on me as a school-going girl. And even though a proper breakfast was cooked in my house every morning, I preferred to drink multiple cups of coffee and maybe have a slice of toast or some biscuits. For a bunch of reasons – mostly health-related – I decided to start prioritising breakfast and kick my coffee-first habit seven or eight years ago. Now, I have a routine so I don’t have to think too much about it.

We either eat toast, without or with eggs; or dosas or idlis. Most weekday mornings, it’s toast, to be honest, and it works for me because I can dress up my breakfast with something delicious. Which is where this pea pesto comes in handy. I first encountered it on an episode of one of Nigella Lawson’s shows. I think she made it with mint? I cannot remember now. And then I read a version of it in Dinner: A Love Story, which is a book I cannot recommend enough.

As I tend to do, I made a version of it for myself, based on what I always have in my fridge. We buy green peas in bulk, have the cook shell them and freeze them. I thaw about a large cup of these in hot water for 10 minutes. In the meantime, I blitz a mix of almonds, cashews and walnuts in the blender with a generous bunch of either coriander, parsley or basil. I am not a fan of garlic, especially in the morning so I leave it out but lots of people prefer this with a clove. Then I throw in the drained peas, salt, olive oil, pepper to taste and a bit of cheese, if I have parmesan, cheddar or feta in the house -and blitz into a chunky paste. Resist the temptation to add any water to it at all. You want the consistency to be thicker.

Apart from on toast, I use this pesto as a dip in the afternoon, or even as a pasta sauce in a pinch. You could amp this up by adding blanched kale, or rocket leaves, too. I sometimes substitute boiled broccoli for the peas and if I do that, I make sure I add extra nuts and herbs for added flavour.