The recipe
Put a deep pan of vegetable stock on to boil (you can use water at a push) and salt it lightly. You will need 300g of peas, shelled weight. Keeping a handful of raw peas to one side, cook the rest in the boiling water for 5-7 minutes, depending in their size.
While the peas cook, grill 10 thin rashers of pancetta until crisp, then drain them on kitchen paper. Cook 250g of dried orecchiette in deep, generously salted boiling water.
Put the peas and their cooking liquor into a blender and process until smooth. Drain the pasta and return to the pan, pour in the pea sauce and fold into the pasta. Check the seasoning. Divide between 2 deep plates.
Break the pancetta into large pieces and add them to the pasta, scatter over the reserved raw peas and serve. Enough for 2.
The trick
Start the pea sauce before putting the pasta on. The sauce will hold in good condition while the pasta cooks. If you are using fresh peas, then check them every minute or so throughout cooking – they can take anything from 4 minutes to much longer to become tender. Much depends on their age and size. If you are using frozen peas, they should be done in 4-5 minutes. Process the peas and their stock in two goes rather than risk overfilling the blender. (Sorry. Obvious, I know, but it is so easy to.)
The twist
You can make a similar sauce with broad beans. They are more starchy than peas, so be prepared to add a little more stock during blending. Although I love the simplicity of peas, pasta and pancetta, I have introduced shelled clams to this before now, thinning the sauce down with some of their (strained) cooking liquor.
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