Broad Bean and Pea Salad

A warm and zesty salad, and a delicious way to use broad beans, which tend to glut in the spring. We peeled ours after cooking tonight, as they seemed to have more bitter skins than usual. But sometimes the skins are thin and delicate so you can leave them on. Otherwise, peeling them doesn't take too much time: just use your thumbnail to nick a small hole in the end opposite the black sprout line, and squeeze the cooked bean out.

Ingredients:

• 200g broad beans, unpodded weight
• 100g petit pois (frozen is fine)
• 1 generous handful of mint leaves
• juice of half a lemon or a whole lime
• 1 tsp demerara sugar
• good olive oil

Pod the broad beans, bring a small pan of unsalted water to a moderate boil, and drop in the broad beans. If you have a lot of different sizes, try to give the largest an extra minute or two of cooking time by dropping them in first. Cook for 7-8 minutes, until tender. Just before they're done, you can drop in the frozen peas and bring back to a boil, then drain. Run under cold water, especially if you intend to peel the broad beans.

Toss the beans and peas with the rest of the ingredients and serve warm. Tonight it went well with lamb burgers and apricot cous-cous, before we got down to the serious arts and crafts of wedding invitations..!