Spring vegetable gnocchi with lemon butter sauce and feta

Shell the peas: hold the pod horizontally, snap the stem to pull the string, and thumb out the peas over a bowl.

Heavily salt a pot of water for blanching the vegetables and cooking the pasta.

Blanch the peas about a minute (fresh peas take a couple of minutes) and shock in a small bowl of ice water.

Shell the fava beans the same way, blanch, then shock in the same ice bath.

Trim the bottoms of the fiddleheads, rub off the brown bits, and blanch.

Peel the fat asparagus; blanch the fat and then the thin asparagus and shock.

Peel the outer skin off each fava bean: scrape a hole on one side and squeeze the bean out the other.

Cut the asparagus into bite-sized pieces; roughly chop the parsley and chives.

Melt a few tablespoons of butter with a little shallot, without letting it brown; soften the shallot very lightly and add lemon juice.

Boil the gnocchi in the salted water until they float; add a little water to the butter so it does not burn.

Transfer the gnocchi with their clinging water to the saucepan and cook over the highest heat to reduce the water and emulsify into a creamy sauce.

Add the vegetables, a pinch of salt and pepper, and most of the herbs.

Finish with crumbled feta.