In our previous study, we found that phosphate transfer from imidazole phosphate to organic compounds occurred in waterdepleted pastes but not in bulk solution. This is due to the high activity of water in solution which outcompetes organic nucleophiles for the phosphate. Such wet-to-dry transitions are deemed to be prebiotically plausible -akin to a puddle or pond drying. Here we use also water-depleted paste conditions to facilitate phosphate transfer to organic nucleophiles in the presence of histidyl peptide catalysts.