This is a lovely salad, bringing together the lovely nutty flavour of the lentils and two very summery flavours, peach and basil. To save time you can buy a 250g pack of cooked beluga lentils (Merchant Gourmet do them). Otherwise cook them from scratch and drain but don’t season them

2½ tbspns olive oil

10g butter

4 peaches or nectarines, skin on, stoned and quartered

250g cooked puy or beluga lentils

30g pecorino cheese, coarsely shaved (hard goats cheese also works very well)

1 tbspn finely chopped parsley

Dressing:-

15g of basil leaves, roughly chopped

1 ½ tbspns extra virgin olive oil

2 tspns white balsamic vinegar

1 tbspn finely chopped chives

• Make the dressing by blitzing all the dressing ingredients together

• Heat ½ tablespoon olive oil with the butter in a pan over a medium heat. When the butter starts to foam, add the peaches (cut side down) and fry for 3-5 minutes according to how ripe they are, so the flesh is just starting to colour. Remove from pan and set aside

• Tip the lentils into the same frying pan with the remaining 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Pan fry for 15 minutes over a medium high heat until they are crispy, stirring occasionally. Season well and stir in the parsley

• Divide the lentils between two plates and top with the peaches and pecorino. Finish with a generous drizzle of the basil dressing