Ingredients

Step by step

1. Toast your almonds in a dry frying pan until they start to get little toasted bellies over the fattest part of the almond; they won’t colour uniformly but that’s okay. Finely grate the lemon zest and parmesan and place in a food processor with the toasted almonds, parsley and a teaspoon of fine sea salt, and pulse together until they come to a coarse crumb. Set aside.
2. Put a large pan of water with a tablespoon of fine sea salt on to boil. Once boiling, add your broad beans, boil rapidly for a minute (1½ minutes if frozen), then scoop them out with a sieve and blanch in very cold water. I’m going to put the case forward here for skinning your broad beans. I know a lot of people don’t bother, but personally I think it’s absolutely worth the effort, and once you get into the rhythm of it, it really doesn’t take that long.
3. Tip the broad beans out into a colander and give them a shake to dry. To skin them, pinch a broad bean at one end and it should pop free from its skin (if it breaks up a little it doesn’t matter at all), then place in a clean bowl and discard the skins.
4. Next, throw your peas into the pan of water and bring it back up to the boil (they only need to boil for around 30 seconds). Drain and add the warm peas to your broad beans, which will now have cooled.
5. Throw in three-quarters of the nut-lemon-herb mix and stir through with the juice of one of the lemons and a couple of tablespoons of olive oil. Taste to see if it needs any more salt, lemon or olive oil and season accordingly.
6. Take a large serving platter and spread the ricotta over it, then tip the peas and broad beans evenly on top. Scatter with the remaining nut-lemonherb mix and another drizzle of olive oil. Serve at room temperature.
   
   *Use a vegetarian hard cheese, if required.