Flamingo Peas

This dish allows the leeks and peas to cook and soften together slowly, lending their flavours to each other. Cooking the peas slowly helps release their starch, giving the dish an overall creamier consistency. The salsa verde adds a great savoury tang. Author Eden Owen-Jones is an avid listener of the Home Cooking podcast with Samin Nosrat and Hrishikesh Hirway and there is only so many times she could hear Samin talk about this salsa without trying to make a version for herself – we think it works really nicely here. 

Much like chickpeas, flamingo peas really come into their own once they’ve had time to soak up flavour. Here, Eden Owen-Jones cooks them marinated with lemon, garlic, fennel seeds and soft herbs, creating a punchy, fragrant base you’ll want to keep on hand for salads, toast toppers and more.

Isabella Palmer's salad of beetroot, barley and peas is a real show-stopper: textured, zippy and vibrant. The beetroot and the black barley are both full of antioxidant anthocyanins, giving them such rich colour. This salad keeps well in the fridge for batch lunches (but if you’re making ahead, add the crispy topping just before serving).

This vibrant take on the classic South Asian kitchari brings together split peas and pearled spelt for a protein and fibre-rich base, paired with seasonal vegetables and deeply aromatic spices.

This pie recipe from Isabella Palmer is a great one for feeding a crowd on cold nights: flavoured with leek, parsnip, sage, white wine, encased in a buttery spelt shortcrust.