Reboot bowl – crisp greens in herby broth
After a long and lovely indulgent festive month, it’s nice to get back into rythm again. To take a moment wondering what this year will have in store for us, what new experiences lie ahead and how we’ll respond to them. Start off with new year’s resolutions, make plans or decide to just see what will come our way.
Reboot and start fresh – and this is my favourite food to do that with. A bowl filled with fresh greens – think crisp sugar snap peas and tenderstem broccoli, tender broad beans and juicy peas. It makes you feel healthy and energetic just by looking at it, but it also has undeniable comfort factor due to the sweetness of the leeks and garlic and the herby, savoury broth used to cook the veg in.
I love the combination with new potatoes, but of course you can swap these for brown rice, farro, pearl barley or any grain of your choice, to make it more macro bowl-y. To up the indulgence level, you can finish the broth with some soured cream or plant based cream and top the lot with parmesan shavings, but trust me, without either of them you’ll be a happy person already.
I wish all of you a year filled with joy, energy and connectedness!
Crisp greens in herby broth – serves 4
Ingredients
- 500 g new potatoes, skin-on
- 400 g frozen podded broad beans
- 1 tbsp. olive oil
- 1 leek, chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
- 350 ml vegetable stock
- 6 sprigs thyme
- salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 200 g frozen peas
- 300 g tenderstem broccoli
- 300 g sugar snap peas
- small bunch chives, chopped
- 100 g radish sprouts
- 50 g shaved parmesan, optional
Preparation
Bring two pans of water to a boil. When boiling, tip the potatoes into one of them and cook them for 10 minutes until tender. Drain and set aside. Use the water in the second pan to blanch the broad beans. Tip them into a colander and rinse them in cold water. Peel from their skins, then set aside.
Heat the olive oil in a large pan. Add the chopped leek and cook on a moderate heat for 5-10 minutes. Stir through the garlic and cook for another few minutes. Pour in the stock, together with the thyme and a generous amount of black pepper and bring to a boil.
Add the frozen peas and the tenderstem broccoli and leave them to cook in the stock for about 5 minutes. Then add the sugar snap peas and cook them for a minute. When the sugar snap peas are just tender, remove the thyme sprigs and, if necessary, season the stock with some extra salt and pepper. Turn off the heat and stir through the broad beans and the chives.
Divide the potatoes, the veg and the broth over four bowls. Serve them topped with the radish sprouts and, if you like, with some shavings of parmesan.
