Aine Carlin's Carlin Pea Chilli Bowl

We discovered Aine Carlin on Twitter, where she shares beautiful pictures of her simple, easy to follow vegan recipes. Many are featured in her recent book, The New Vegan, but lots simply record her day-to-day explorations into vegan cookery and are posted on her blog, PeaSoup. 

We had an extra reason to be delighted to find Aine; she shares a second name with our favourite (are we allowed favourites?) pea. So we sent her some carlins. On reflection she might have been rather taken aback by this gift, but she was as pleased as us with her namesake, loved the peas and quickly put our gift to good use making a delicious Carlin Chilli Bowl.

With kind permission we're reproducing the recipe below, but you really need to visit Aine's blog to get her full description of the recipe. While you're there you'll undoubtedly stumble across some other fantastic recipes - like this one for beetroot and fava bean dip.

Here's what Aine said about the whole experience and about the recipe:

"I apparently share my name with a pea … how cool/weird is that? Until Hodmedod’s kindly sent me some, I’d never actually come across ‘Carlin Peas’ before (also known as Black Badgers) so didn’t really know what to expect...

"Obviously I wanted to put my own spin on it though so opted for a generous dollop of harissa instead of my usual chilli spice combo (cumin, paprika, cayenne etc.) and I’m pleased to say it really worked a treat. You can easily up the spice ante with a dash more chilli if you please but one birds eye (sans seeds) was sufficient for me, especially as I didn’t want the harissa overshadowed by mega-heat. I was tempted to serve this with Hodmedods quinoa (also British grown!) but went in for my favourite chilli accompaniment instead … tortilla chips. Oh, and don’t forget that guac/avocado for added creaminess that will offset the richness of the tomato sauce."

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