Peas on Toast: Your New Super Breakfast or Lunch

Peas on toast isn’t exactly a main course at The Ritz, but it’s a tasty, healthy meal that’s perfect for breakfast or lunch (or dinner, if you’re looking for something that’s both light, healthy and delicious).

Incidentally, the first time I actually tried peas on toast was at The Broad Chare, a boujee restaurant in my home city. This recipe is basically just me riffing off theirs, as they say.

Peas on toast recipe

Ingredients

Serves: 2

• 1 regular-sized shallot or onion¹
• 2-3 garlic cloves
• Handful roasted nuts (e.g. peanuts, almonds or cashews)
• 200g frozen peas (petit pois are my go-to, but you could also use edamame beans²)
• 180ml full-fat coconut milk from a tin/can
• 1 tsp Dijon or English mustard
• 3 stems mint leaves
• 2 slices of bread
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Black pepper
• Salt
• Some hot ingredient: e.g. 1 tsp hot sauce, 1 tsp harissa paste or a fresh chilli (optional)
• Butter (optional)
• Hard cheese (e.g. Parmesan, aged cheddar or aged comté – optional)

Directions

1. Peel and roughly chop the shallots/onions.
2. Peel the garlic.
3. Roughly chop the nuts.
4. Pre-heat 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil on medium heat in a medium-sized frying pan.
5. Immediately add the shallots and fry for about 8-10 minutes, until soft and blonde. Stir every so often.
6. Add the peas, mustard, mint leaves, the “hot ingredient” and coconut milk to a food processor. (In The Flavour Matrix, James Briscione says in his book that peas pair pretty well with alliums, toasted nuts, mint, fish, mushroom, berry and melon. And he also notes a few surprising pairings: strawberry, coffee, apple and coconut. Hence why I’m using the coconut milk).
7. Squeeze in the lemon juice. Add the garlic, grated with a Microplane (I highly recommend this tool if you don’t already own one).
8. Add salt and pepper.
9. Once the shallots are blonde, add them to the food processor. Add the lid and pulse everything for 60 seconds until a chunky paste has formed (it should not be too consistent).
10. Taste and adjust. (You can add salt, pepper or something sweet or acidic to adjust the profile to your tastes).
11. Wipe out the pan used for the shallots and add back onto medium heat. Once heated, add 1 tbsp butter or olive oil.
12. Add the bread to the pan and toast on each side for around 1-2 minutes until nicely browned.
13. To plate your peas on toast, add the bread to the plate, spoon over some puree, top with the chopped roasted nuts. Grate over some Parmesan (or other hard cheese, like an aged Cheddar or Comte) with the Microplane. Add more pepper.
14. This will serve 2 people. Serve up immediately.

Notes

1. Apparently most alliums – so like onions, garlic, leeks, shallots, and all of that – taste pretty good with peas. But there’s a reason basically every half-decent restaurant uses shallots almost exclusively: they’re just better than regular onions. They’re sweeter and milder than most alliums. Apparently shallots taste somewhere between onions and garlic, but I can’t really tell to be honest. Either way, I basically try to use shallots in every recipe that calls for onion, and today is no exception.
2. I generally always opt for frozen peas over their fresh counterparts. Peas lose their sweetness very fast after they’ve been picked, so by the time fresh peas reach the supermarket, they’ve probably been sitting on the shelf for ages and they’re already way too old. Whereas frozen peas are frozen very quickly after being picked so they’re practically fresh.