Pea purée with grilled cheese and beet sprouts

Primo sale e vellutata di piselli

Pea purée can be made and served in a hundred different ways. Here it is matched with grilled cheese, beet sprouts and tiny pieces of tomato to make a new kind of red, white and green starter.

Primo sale is a white, semi-hard south Italian sheep cheese that is often flavoured with chilli or peppercorn to kick some life into an otherwise bland taste. Like the Turkish/Greek halloumi cheese, primo sale does not melt immediately upon contact with heat, which means it can be fried or grilled.

Compared with other pea recipes such as pea salad or peas with olives, this pea purée made with yogurt is extremely simple, which means you get the full taste of the basic ingredient. And tomato and beet sprouts dress up the visual impression.

Ingredients

150 g primo sale or halloumi
100 g shelled peas
1 tbsp grated Parmesan
1 tbsp yogurt
1 tomato
Beet sprouts (other kinds of sprouts can be used instead)
Olive oil, salt and pepper.

Preparation

Bring a pan of salty water to the boil and toss in the shelled peas.
Let the peas boil for 5 minutes.
Drain the peas and blend them to a thick paste with a little olive oil and grated Parmesan.
Fold the yogurt into the green pea purée. And salt, pepper and more olive oil to taste.
Cut the tomato in halves, scoop out the seeds and dice the flesh finely.
Grill cubes of primo sale and arrange the cheese on a bed of pea purée surrounded by dots of tomato and beet sprouts.