I’m so sorry. I just can’t help myself. Following the delightful discovery of how wonderfully sweet little pop-in-your mouth peas pair with the mellow butteriness of sautéed leeks, I’ve been eager to find another vehicle for them so as to justify having more. This time, however, I wanted to add the refreshing and savoury flavour of mint which, to me, is one of the best partners to peas that has ever been stumbled upon.

And it came to me, thanks to my mum. On her recent visit, she brought with her a new recipe book—in my usual preferred style: beautiful, hardback, suitable as a coffee table book and thus slightly pretentious. She’d found it in a cute shop in a little English village called Alfriston, and because of the title and the seller’s claim that the book wasn’t typically available in the UK, she couldn’t help but get it for me.

The book, Crumbs of Joy*—a Scandinavian cookbook produced by Valio, a Finnish dairy company—included a recipe for a puff pastry traybake. Of course, I thought, what could be more simple yet less intrusive than using puff pastry as a platform for all the flavours I wanted to champion, whilst providing all the necessary integrity as a delivery mechanism.

So, I won’t beat around the bush. Here’s my latest pea and leek recipe, perfect for spring (which we supposedly are in right now). I’ve included mint, as mentioned, as well as ricotta and pine nuts to further accent the mellow and sweet flavours while adding tang and crunch. 

A few notes on the recipe

This is a love dish to myself, so the flavours are all absolutely necessary for me. However, if your self-love also involves crumbling over some feta or goat cheese as a finishing touch (perhaps with a drizzle of honey), adding podded edamame, freckling over lemon zest, or replacing the pine nuts with toasted pumpkin seeds (and thereby expanding the green colour palette)—then what’s it got to do with me?

*Heikkinen, Oona, et al., Crumbs of Joy, (Helsinki: Cozy Publishing, 2025).