A plateful of these might just take the heat off the barbecue chef. For a while, anyway.
24 to 30 snow peas
3/4 cup ricotta
1/3 cup parsley, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, squished
salt, to taste
black pepper, to taste
Snap the stem of each snow pea, pulling gently to remove the stringy fibre. Carefully split the pod open along the top (where the string used to be) to make a little canoe-like pocket. Combine the ricotta cheese, parsley, garlic, salt and pepper – blending to mix thoroughly.
If you have a pastry bag, spoon the ricotta mixture into it and pipe each pea pod with some of the filling. Or spoon the filling into a clean plastic sandwich bag; then, holding the top closed, snip off one corner and use this to squish the filling into the pods. Arrange filled pods on a plate, and serve as soon as possible – otherwise the filling gets runny.