When you’re hankering after something starchy and satisfying, this soupy spring rice delight will definitely please the tastebuds

I don’t know whether I prefer saying risi e bisi or eating this Venetian springtime speciality, which is traditionally made to celebrate the feast of St Mark, the city’s patron saint, on 25 April. That said, this deliciously soupy, starchy dish ticks a lot of boxes for me at this time of year, not least because even I can amuse myself in a terrible Italian accent for only so long.

Prep 15 min
Cook 1 hr
Serves 4

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Celebrate the freshness of a new season with ricotta gnocchi with raw pea pesto, fennel sausage penne and broccoli orecchiette

Prep 20 min
Cook 1 hr 25 min
Serves 4

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Crunchy with fennel, lettuce and green beans, with soft boiled potatoes, this tuna salad comes with the double whammy of a tuna-laced sauce

My parents live in Mallorca, and one of my favourite things to eat when I visit them is the most simple ensalada mixta . The best ones are just a mountain of lettuce, white asparagus, a mound of tinned tuna and some capers. As a child, I’d eat all the tuna first, so here is my favourite tuna salad: tuna with tuna dressing, which is inspired by Italian tonnato sauce. A double tuna salad! To me, that’s perfect.

Make More with Less: Foolproof Recipes to Make Your Food go Further by Kitty Coles is published by Hardie Grant (£22). To buy a copy for £19.36, go to guardianbookshop.com

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A spring soup-stew known as scafata and typical of Lazio, featuring chard, potatoes, artichokes and new-season broad beans

Broad beans are back – long, green fingers with the odd black nail. And so are the warning signs, for those who suffer favism (a rare but acute haemolytic syndrome), as well as for those, such as my neighbour, who think that fave are an abomination. For fans, the first young beans are good raw, with pecorino or cheddar. In Lazio and central Italy, scafa is dialect for a broad bean pod, and scafare the verb for removing the beans from their pods; therefore, scafata is a dish involving podded beans. As you might expect from a dish shared by different regions, scafata has as many variations as cooks that make it, but, broadly speaking, it can be described as somewhere between a brothy stew and a dense soup involving broad beans and other spring vegetables, such as chard, onions, potatoes and artichokes.

The cooking method is what I think of as a steamy braise, which is also a possible chapter title for an as-yet-unwritten detective story. One steamy braise might start with a letter containing a feather and a ring. The other – this one – starts by cooking vegetables in a generous amount of olive oil. Once they are just starting to soften, liquid is added and the pan half covered, allowing the vegetables to soften further in both the liquid and steam, which (having done its job) evaporates, leaving behind a vegetable liquor and an olive oil broth.

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Welcome to a win-win vegetarian Italian classic: it’s simple, delicious and makes clever use of old bread

Today’s easy recipe for Italian vegetarian “meatballs” is a great way to use up stale bread in a tasty yet economical way. I like them gently fried, then mixed with tomato sauce and spaghetti, but they’re also great coated in breadcrumbs and deep-fried or baked until crisp and delicious. They’re good with steamed seasonal greens, too. Other variations on the theme include placing a cube of mozzarella in the middle of each ball and taking this dish to the next level. Unless I’m feeling flush, though, I prefer to keep things simple with just breadcrumbs flavoured with parmesan or a vegetarian alternative (or whatever cheese I have to hand).

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Two light and sprightly Thai dishes for spring: mushroom tom yum soup with rice noodles, and crisp cauliflower in a sweet-sour tamarind sauce

” Gin khao yung ?” – or “Have you eaten yet?” – is a way of saying hello in Thailand. It’s similar to “‘What’s up?” and “How’s it going?”, and is an indication of just how important food is in the everyday lives of Thai people. These recipes from my book, Thai Made Easy, are two classics reinvented with plant-based ingredients – simple to assemble and suitable for most.

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It’s not as complicated as you might think to make this superstar aromatic curry from scratch – here’s a definitive step-by-step guide

For many of us in the west, green curry, or kaeng khiao wan , was our first taste of Thai cuisine – indeed, just 30 years ago, the Irish Sunday Independent felt the need to explain to its readers that Thai curries were “very different” from Chinese or Indian ones. Fresh and fiery, this modern classic is still a wake-up call to the palate today.

Prep 20 min
Cook 20 min
Serves 2 , and easily doubled

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Three joyful dishes for a new year: a mild yellow curry, street food-style fried pork and a simple dish of baked mackerel and rice

Songkran , the Thai New Year on 13 April, is a vibrant and joyous celebration marked by a famous water festival that symbolises the cleansing of the past year’s misfortunes through playful water fights and anointing one’s elders with water at the hottest time of year. Traditional Thai dishes play a central role, reflecting the culinary heritage that unites families and communities at this auspicious time.

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All four Thai flavour sensations – salty, sweet, sour and fragrant – feature in a prawn salad with green mango and peanuts and a pineapple coconut lime loaf for dessert

I still remember the first time I tried Thai green mango salad. It was, and is, a heady combination of flavours: salt, in both crystals and from fish sauce; sugar, preferably unrefined; fresh chilli, lots of it; citrus tang from the lime; and lots of aromatic notes from the herbs. It’s also very simple to bash together at home, as is this embellished version with prawns and peanuts. Just make sure you have a large pestle and mortar, which is the secret to many a great sauce.

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