Welcome to Flavour Nuggets! This is the free version of the newsletter. These recipes stay free for 2 weeks, after which they’re auto-paywalled. There’s a second instalment on Fridays for paid subscribers, which contains a brand new recipe. Plus! Paid subs can access the juicy recipe archive, enjoy occasional perks/giveaways, and BTS snapshots of my life as a recipe developer and food writer. All for 87p a week! If that sounds good, go ahead and upgrade by clicking the button below. Before we kick off, a quick reminder about the Food and Print fair that’s happening THIS SATURDAY! Come along and find your new favourite food publication, and do say hello if you make it; I’d love to meet you. Here are all the details. Mint? In pesto? (Garlic? BREAD?!). If you haven’t tried this springy variation, here’s your prompt. The key is balancing the mint with a little parsley so it’s not like pasta with mint sauce. Except it sort of is that? The mint also brings out the slight pea flavour of the asparagus, and it’s all around giving crisp, dewy mornings and a renewed zest for life. The sun is out. It’s April. We have survived. People with more time on their hands would make the pasta here, obviously, but I do not have that kind of timesink allowance in my schedule. So I cheat. If you want to make your own pasta, then yes, a superior result will be your reward. If you have a couple of hours to spend mixing, rolling and hanging, then I’m sure it’s very meditative. How cosy, how domesticated, how romantic; but sorry, for me, it’s a no. I only made fresh pasta, like, once during lockdown ffs. The days of my ‘project cooking’ have passed. I now proudly stick my flag in the quick-and-easy camp and leave the rest to chefs in their restaurants. Who has the resources to spend hours making dinner? In this economy?! The trick here is to buy fresh lasagne sheets and cut them in half. They cook in a couple of minutes. However, if you have a box of dried lasagne sheets knocking about, you can absolutely snap a few of those and boil them up, no problem. Obviously, they’ll take a bit longer. What could be better than cracking some dusty leaves into your cauldron, then passing them off as ‘silk handkerchiefs’? An aspirational level of cheek. Helen x
Silk Handkerchiefs, Mint Pesto and Asparagus 250g fresh lasagne sheets Mint Pesto Whack everything for the pesto into a blender with a pinch of salt and whizz to a pesto consistency. Add more salt if you need it, which you probably will. Cook the asparagus in the boiling water for 2-3 minutes, depending on thickness (err on the side of caution), then lift out with tongs and immediately plunge into the bowl of cold water. Add the pasta sheets to the boiling water and cook for a couple of minutes. In a frying pan, gently warm a good dollop of the pesto, then add a ladleful of pasta cooking water to loosen it up. Transfer the sheets and asparagus to the frying pan, toss to combine. Serve immediately, garnished with Parmesan if using.
SUPERSIZE ME! A bumper two recipe edition coming for paid subs this Friday, including an absolutely stunning puff pastry tart that looks as good as it tastes and some essential fish fingers. No really. It is imperative that you make them. Until next time, Flavour Fans x
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Thursday, April 9, 2026
Flavour Nugget #74: Silk handkerchiefs, mint pesto and asparagus
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