My childhood friend Carina came to visit this weekend. Living in warm Vietnam at the moment she was very unimpressed with the weather, but we still had a great time. She arrived fairly late on Friday so I had prepared some nibbles and we had some wine once she arrived. We hadn’t seen each other for ages and ended up chatting until 3am although we were both very tired. It was probably the food that kept us going.

We had some serrano rolls with lemon crème, plain serrano ham, parmesan biscuits, Ossau-Iraty cheese (which I love) with truffle honey and crostini with broadbean dip.

I think crostini is a great way of serving up different dips or chicken liver mousse. It is a relaxed way of offering nibbles and always so good. This broadbean dip feels quite summery with the simple flavourings of dill oil, lemon juice and persillade and turned out delicious! This time I used tinned beans but I can’t wait for summer so I can use fresh ones.

Broadbean dip with dill and persillade, serves four with crostini

1 tin (300 g) tinned broadbeans in water

1/2 lemon, juice only

2 tbsp mild olive oil

1/2-1 tbsp dill oil

1/2 tsp persillade

a pinch of salt

black pepper

Rinse the beans and drain. Pour them into a mixing jug and add all ingredients apart from salt and pepper. Mix with a stick blender until a fairly smooth paste. Season to taste with salt and pepper.