Today's recipes are for colourful dishes that speak of spring. Broad beans and peas are in season at the same time and are also very nice eaten together. Mint is the perfect herb to have with them. Enjoy this combination simply as a side dish, made into a soup, tossed through pasta or mixed into a risotto.

The dish of broad beans, peas and Puy-style lentils with mint is fresh-tasting and delicious. Serve it as a salad or starter. I like to have it for lunch with new potatoes or crusty bread.

The idea for this recipe comes from River Cafe Cook Book Two, by Rose Gray and Ruth Rogers (Ebury Press 1997).

The Italian way of serving strawberries macerated with sugar and lemon is one of the best, I think. Fresh ricotta with lemon is lovely served with them.

Broad beans, peas and French lentils with mint

Use small pods of beans if you can. Larger ones will need to be double-podded. While fresh broad beans are nicest, frozen ones (about 375g) can be used. They should be blanched for one minute and then peeled.

13 cup (80g) French-style lentils

1 clove of garlic

112 cups baby peas, fresh or frozen

750g pods of broad beans, (112 cups baby and double-podded broad beans)

1 bunch of mint

4 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

juice of 1 lemon

sea salt and ground black pepper

Pick over and rinse the lentils. Place them in a small saucepan with the garlic clove. Cover with plenty of water and bring up to the boil. Simmer for about 20 minutes until just tender. Test one to see. Drain and dress with two tablespoons of olive oil, the juice of half the lemon, salt and pepper. Either discard the garlic or crush into the dressing. Pod the broad beans. Separate the shelled beans into piles of smaller and larger beans. Heat a pan of water to boiling. Toss in the larger beans and boil for three minutes. Remove them from the water with a sieve and plunge straight into ice-cold water. Slip off the skins. Meanwhile, add the smaller beans to the boiling water and cook for two minutes. Drain them and mix with the peeled beans. Toss with a little olive oil and season. If using fresh peas, sort them into sizes as for the broad beans. Heat a pan with plenty of boiling salted water. Throw in the larger peas first and boil for one minute, then add the smaller ones and cook for another minute. Frozen peas only need to be cooked for one minute. Drain the peas and while still hot, toss with a little olive oil and seasoning. Just before serving, mix together the lentils, beans and peas. Chop the mint and stir in. Add more olive oil, lemon juice and seasoning to taste. Serve warm or at room temperature.