Smashed green vegetables for brunch have become a fixture on British tables over the last decade – but the avocado might finally be edged off the organic sourdough by a new topper. Peas on toast is now officially a thing.
The hashtag #peasontoast has had more than 3.3m views on TikTok and Google searches for “peas on toast” have increased by 133% this month. The dish is now on the menu of a wide range of restaurants and featured in recipe books by some of the UK’s most celebrated chefs.
Award-winning restaurant Fallow, in London’s West End, is known for its brunch menu, which features no-avo eggs – a dish including crushed English pea, smoked curds, coriander and walnut dukkah. Head east to the Allotment Kitchen at Stepney City Farm and you’ll also find peas on toast. At this local cafe they come smashed with feta and lemon but the key ingredient is the same: the British pea.
Lucy Cuthbert, who runs the cafe with her sister-in-law Betty Gilbert, says their menu features “a lot of things on toast” and they get as much produce as possible from the city farm itself: “It’s a stone’s throw from the cafe and they grow delicious green peas when in season.”
The dish was added to the menu at Fallow for similar reasons. Chef Jack Croft says the no-avo dish was introduced this summer when English peas are at their best: “A lot of work goes into finding the best ingredients from British growers for the restaurant. We use a company called Shrub that supplies the peas. They are from within a 25-mile radius of London.”
Peas make a lot of sense as a brunch replacement for the avocado if “food miles” are a consideration. According to the British Growers Association, there are 700 pea-growers and the UK is 90% self-sufficient for pea production – 160,000 tonnes of frozen peas are produced annually. So even out of season, it’s a cheap vegetable that has a small carbon footprint, and eating peas helps support British farmers.
The Hass avocado, so beloved in the UK, is mainly grown in central and south America. Mexico is the largest producer. So these fruits have a long journey to your brunch table, and research shows drug cartels and gangs have become involved in the avocado trade.
This hasn’t stopped them becoming a lifestyle staple over the last decade. Everyone from Gwyneth Paltrow – who included an avocado on toast recipe in her bestselling 2013 cookbook It’s All Good – to chefs such as Bill Granger, who is credited with first adding the dish to the brunch table, have praised the green fruit.
As the vogue for clean eating took hold, the avocado was declared a superfood and became a breakfast staple in the UK. Soft toys, keyrings and homewares featuring its pleasing curves are bestsellers. The Australian millionaire real estate mogul Tim Gurner even said that if millenials wanted to get onto the property ladder they should stop buying smashed avocados on toast.
“Avocado doesn’t have a strong flavour,” says Croft. “When you make a guacamole you season it with lime and coriander and that’s where a lot of the taste comes from.” He recommends giving uncooked peas a try, pulsed in a blender until they have a coarse texture. “Raw peas offer a truly distinctive taste, they have a grassy, herbal and sweet profile. You’ll find that they stay fresh in the fridge for up to three days.”
The pea is also very good value for money – no bad thing during current anxiety over food price inflation – and freezes easily. And, while a dish of crushed peas feels more sophisticated than the mushy peas that featured in many British childhoods, a new appreciation for the common pea is appealing.
Chef Tom Kerridge includes smashed cooked peas on toast on his instagram @fulltimemeals which features easy and budget-friendly meals. He says: “It’s great if you want something quick and easy and don’t feel like a lot of cooking, plus you probably have all the ingredients at home.” His top tip: “Add a touch of mint – fresh or sauce – it lifts the dish to another level.”
Smashed peas on toast with basil and nduja
Ingredients:
garlic clove, finely crushed 1
sourdough bread 4 slices
olive oil 2 tbsp
spring onions, trimmed and thinly sliced 3
frozen peas 250g
lemon rind 1 tbsp
basil leaves, roughly chopped 8
chopped flat leaf parsley A small handful
Nduja sausage 100g
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 190C/170C Fan/Gas 5.
Spread the crushed garlic onto the sourdough slices, drizzle with a little olive oil and bake in the oven for 5 minutes, or until slightly golden brown.
Meanwhile, heat the remaining olive oil in a pan, add the spring onions and cook for about 1 minute over a medium heat, stirring occasionally. Add the peas and lemon rind and cook for a further 2-3 minutes until the peas are cooked and then remove from the heat.
Crush the peas slightly with a potato masher, then season with some salt and pepper and stir in the basil and half the chopped parsley.
Remove the toasts from the oven and spread the nduja sausage evenly over them.
Return the nduja toasts to the oven and bake for 3-4 minutes, taking care not to over-brown the Nduja.
Remove from the oven, top the toasts with the pea and spring onion crush and scatter over the remaining chopped parsley.
For more crushed pea recipes go to Yes Peas
