Sugar Snap Peas with Ajo Blanco

Serves

4 People

Cooking Time

30 minutes

Season

Summer

Dietary

Vegetarian

Ajo blanco is a refreshing, creamy, cold soup made with almonds, stale bread and water and spiced up with good quality olive oil and vinegar. Here Libby from Field Food has teamed it with quickly-blanched sugar snap peas which are bountiful and delicious at this time of year.

Ingredients

50g white bread (with crusts removed)
A dash of milk (almond works)
100g blanched almonds
260ml ice-cold water
2 garlic cloves
1/4 cucumber, peeled and roughly chopped 100ml good quality extra-virgin olive oil
1 tbsp sherry vinegar
Sea salt and black pepper
A couple of handfuls of sugar snap peas
A small bunch of parsley
Zest of 1/2 lemon

Method

Roughly tear the bread into chunks and put it into a bowl with the almond milk for 5-10 minutes. Meanwhile, toast the almonds in a frying pan until starting to turn golden brown, then set aside to cool.
Squeeze the milk out of the bread and add it to a blender, along with the almonds. Add a splash of water and blitz for a couple of minutes until it’s all finely ground. Keep the blender running and slowly pour in the water, and then add the garlic, cucumber, oil and vinegar. Blend until really smooth. Taste and check the seasoning and add more salt, pepper or vinegar as needed. Chill for a couple of hours in the fridge.
Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil. Add the peas and blanch for only a couple of minutes, until they turn bright green, then drain and immediately plunge into a bowl of ice cold water to stop them cooking any further. Drain really well to remove the moisture. Put the peas in a bowl with the chopped parsley leaves, drizzle over some olive oil and season with a pinch of salt and the lemon zest. Gently toss everything together.
Spoon the ajo blanco into serving dishes and top with the peas. Drizzle with a little more olive oil before serving.