This miso pea pastina is a welcome way to eat your greens

I love the warm, lush summers of the Midwest and the dry, mild winters of Mexico, but my favorite season in England, my new home, is, without a doubt,...

I love the warm, lush summers of the Midwest and the dry, mild winters of Mexico, but my favorite season in England, my new home, is, without a doubt, spring. On a recent walk, I was blown away by how many shades of green one vista could contain. The color of the grassy field I stood in was so deep that it was almost blue, while the trees in the background presented a range of lime and olive hues. I snapped a picture, but it failed to capture the beauty in front of me. It always does.

Looking at the photo in my phone camera roll, I realized that it was in good company in a sea of green salads, herb-accented soups and buttery steamed vegetables. The food I gravitate toward this time of year seems to reflect the world around it, and I’m continuing the trend with this vibrant miso Pea Pastina.

Pastina translates to "little pasta” in Italian, and refers to any tiny pasta shape as well as the brothy dish that features the ingredient. Pastina has been making the rounds on TikTok for more than a year now, but creators continue to feature it in their videos that get hundreds of thousands of views, a feat in such a trend-driven space. As Celia Mattison writes in Bon Appétit, pastina’s enduring appeal is perhaps better exemplified by the generations of Italians and Italian Americans who fondly carry on the traditions of their own families’ recipes.

The dish is made simply and with few ingredients. Most versions use some combination of soffritto, broth, milk, butter and parmesan. Given its simple, starchy comfort, pastina is also called "Italian penicillin.” While nourishing foods like this often remind me of winter - and flu season - fellow allergy sufferers will agree that there is still room for easy, healing foods in spring. But beyond that, I wanted to give the simple dish a little extra seasonal flourish.

Initially, I considered including chopped spring vegetables, such as asparagus and artichokes, but part of the beauty of pastina is the small size of the pasta and the creamy, uniform texture of the dish. Inspired by almost neon green pea dips and a bright pea and pecorino pasta from Josh Cohen, I then got the idea to blanch peas and blend them with vegetable broth, white miso and tender herbs to create a deep green broth with a kiss of umami.