Make this recipe even easier: you could buy the green pesto to stir into the beans, but if you do this, do buy the ‘fresh pesto’ you get in tubs in the chilled section as opposed to the jarred one. It’s fresher and just a million times better than jarred pesto.

If you don’t want to use chicken thighs: use chicken breast. I like thighs as they are juicier, but breasts will work just fine.

For chicken breasts: Heat a high sided frying pan over medium heat. Rub the chicken with a drizzle of olive oil and season with salt and pepper, then place in the pan. Fry for about 4–5 minutes, skin side down, then turn and cook for another 2–3 minutes. Remove the chicken from the pan and place on a baking tray. Roast in the oven for 8 minutes. Remove from the oven and leave to rest for at least 2 minutes. Now for this recipe I like using skin on chicken thighs and they normally come with the bone in, but it’s so easy to just snip the bone out with a pair of scissors. If the thought of this horrifies you, you can use skinless chicken thighs. It means you won’t get quite the same crispiness but you can definitely still get them nice and golden. Use exactly the same method with the cornflour and frying them.

How to get your children to eat it too: Possibly skip the red chilli in the beans! If you want to double the recipe, here’s what to do: Very easily doubled - just double all ingredients for the beans and the chicken. I would make the pesto with the same quantities for two as for four, as I find that it’s always plenty and you will have some leftover anyway!

Make it veggie: this is delicious even without the chicken. You could add a few more greens on top for some texture. Or roasted cherry tomatoes - roast them on the vine with a little olive oil and plenty of salt and pepper. You could also finely slice some asparagus spears or sliced courgette and sauté them in the pan before adding the beans to them. Treat it kind of like you would a risotto - a bean-otto if you will.

A note on the mascarpone: Realistically, any creamy product works here. Creme fraiche is great. Cream cheese would also work or even just double cream, but I like the tang of mascarpone. I opt for a little dollop of creme fraiche on the top but I totally get if you would rather keep the list of ingredients smaller and just use one.

What to serve with this: You can add a few more veggies to the side to up the green - sautéed spinach, tenderstem broccoli, asparagus. I’m very into garlicky sautéed greens at the moment.

What to do with leftovers: the beans keep well and reheat well in the microwave too, so any leftovers I would just have for lunch the next day. Leftover pesto keeps well in the fridge for around a week or two. Store in the fridge in an airtight container or jar. If you want to keep it longer, I would advise adding it to a jar and levelling it out so it’s nice and flat. Then add some olive oil over the top to create a layer that essentially seals the pesto. This will stop it going bad as fast. The olive oil will solidify a bit in the fridge but once mixed into hot pasta (for example) or brought to room temperature, it’ll melt. It can be used in so many ways - on pasta, in sandwiches, drizzled over soups, loosened with lemon juice to make a salad dressing. I do just love it stirred into pasta with lots of parmesan. Can’t beat that.