Category Archives: Beans and Peas

Fava Beans, and the Spring-iest Salad that Ever Was Sprung

11 Saturday May 2013

Posted by in Beans and Peas, Green, Spring, Vegetables

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Poor fava beans.  Besmirched by Hannibal Lecter, neglected by most Americans, their fat, lumpy pods looking like just a whole lot of bother.

fava bean podsDon’t get me wrong, favas are a bit of pain in the heinie. (Fun Fact: also spelled hiney!  But not heiny, as I originally thought.  Thanks, dictionary.com!)  As anyone who has read, oh, even one of my posts can attest to, I’m a lazy cook.  I don’t like peeling, trimming, turning, shelling, or barely even washing.  I eat the parts most people toss and if it can all quickly go into one pan, preferably with bacon, and just get stirred around until it looks done, I’m happy.

Not so with favas.

broad beansFava beans (also known as faba beans, fave, broad beans, English beans, horse beans, pigeon beans, field beans – I’m getting the sense that these suckers have been around a while, yes?) take a comparatively whole lotta work.  They’re protected from the elements by not just one but TWO casings – the outer pod and an inner soft shell – and you have to shuck both before you can eat them.  Don’t, ahem, assume other bloggers and cookbooks are being fancy pants and take a bite of the de-podded but still white-shelled bean.  It’s nasty.  Not that I did that.

But the good news is that the whole double-shucking process isn’t nearly as time-consuming as it reads.  The beans pop out of the pods pretty easily, and with a good blanching the worst part of the de-shelling is a bit of vegetation under your nails – which might not even be true if you blanch properly.  fave in shellsI never have ice on hand, so my ice water is cold tap water, which if you’ve ever taken basic science class, you’ll realize means that as soon as you add hot favas to the water, the whole thing heats up instantaneously and does a horrible job of blanching.  But good news continues!  Because even with sub-par blanching, the beans are still pretty easy to peel.  It just takes time to go bean by bean.

And then!  You get these squat, nutty, oh so green nuggets of delight.  They don’t taste like beans at all, in my opinion, because they’re not little explosions of mealy mush.  (I’m not a big fan of beans, as you might guess.)  The closest approximation is garbanzo beans, but really only in terms of texture, since fava beans have nothing of garbanzos’ astringency.  Fava beans taste like a nut that doesn’t stick in your teeth, a little sweet, a little buttery, and a wee bit ‘green.’  But what they really taste like is Spring.

English bean in podI don’t know how, I don’t know why – maybe it’s their intense green color, their cute little shape, their inherent freshness since you’re eating them essentially raw – but when you taste a fava, it tastes like a sunshine-y day and a cool breeze.  They were so spring-like that we actually laid out a blanket in the back yard and made a picnic out of our meal rather than eat at the table.  I’m not kidding.

Look for healthy, springy, pale to medium green pods without a lot of brown spots (a few are okay), and in which the beans aren’t bulging out of the pod.  Bulging beans means they’re a bit old and overgrown. (I feel like there’s a pot belly joke in here, but having been pregnant twice in the past 3 years, I have stopped commenting on bulging bellies.)  And then, to the work:

First, de-pod your beans.  There’s technically a string that runs along the back:

fava beanAnd if you can catch it it will peel right open, but if not, just tear it open.  You’ll find 3-6 beans nestled snug in their beds.  The cushioning looks like a pillow:broad bean cushion

While you’re de-podding, boil some water.  When you have your little pile of whitish-looking beans and the water is rolling, toss them in for just 1 minute:

fava beans blanchWhile they’re boiling, fill a bowl with ice water (not just cold tap water).  When the timer goes, toss them in and let them sit 1 minute.  The outer waxy covering should shrivel and pull away from the green legume a little.  Then, bean by bean, remove that outer coating.  On the left, a boiled bean; on the right, the coating removed:

fava with and without membraneSee how green they are?  That’s it.  Now they’re edible.  Some people puree them, some people saute with garlic and lemon (though I find cooking further isn’t necessary), but we chose to make

The Spring-iest Salad that Ever Was Sprung

Prepared fava beans
Breakfast Radishes
Fennel
Cooked Breakfast or Sweet Chicken Sausage (optional)
1 lemon
Olive oil
Sea or kosher salt (you want it chunky, not finely ground)

Slice the radishes into small pieces and shave the fennel as finely as you can.  Mix with favas and and the sausage if you’re using it.   Our fennel was particularly licorice-tasting this time, so we combined in a ratio of about 2:2:1 for radishes, fava beans, and fennel so it didn’t overpower.  Squeeze the lemon juice on top, drizzle with olive oil, and toss to coat.  Sprinkle with salt.

Spring SaladThat’s it.  It was awesome.  The fava beans are mellow and nutty and add an unexpected bit of richness of flavor, the radishes and fennel added a little bite and complexity, the lemon dressing and chunky salt added a brightness that enhanced the freshness of all the ingredients.  It was spring in a bowl and was the inspiration for our impromptu picnic – good crusty bread, a few slices of quality cheese, and very cold wine and you had a happy little family, though the toddler just ate the favas and sausage and ignored the sharp little radishes and fennel slices.  I honestly think I’ll leave out the sausage next time, as we really only added it because we wanted to use it up, and though it added a nice savory sweetness, I think the salad would be even springier without it.  Other additions?  Next time I’m adding thinly sliced asparagus, even garlic scapes if I can find them, but in my estimation, the best Spring Salad is one just like this: find the freshest Spring ingredients you can, toss them together, and put down a blanket in the back yard.  And just this once, leave out the bacon.

Peel/Trim? Definitely.  A few sources say you can eat without the second shelling if the beans are absolute babies, but the casing is pretty bitter in anything bigger.
Edible when raw? Sort of.  Blanch to remove the casing, and then they’re edible.  It’s possible to buy them dried like other beans, and then you have to cook them just as you would black, pinto, kidney, etc.
Worth the price of organic? One of the few foods to which I’m going to say Probably Not.  There’s so much peeling and shelling going on here that any pesticides sprayed on won’t make it to your plate.  It’s true that what you’re eating is the seed, so anything in the soil is going to be concentrated in here, so if you’re that concerned, feel free, but if you’re that concerned, you’re probably buying everything organic already.
Best with:  Do I have to say liver and a nice chianti?  Yes, yes I do.  Otherwise, spring vegetables that taste clean, green, and fresh are the way to go: radishes, young garlic, young onion, mint, dill, lemon.  Ricotta would be lovely, even a mild goat cheese, but anything stronger will overpower the subtle, mild flavor of the fresh nutty beans.
In Season: Spring.  In some areas they grow into the summer, but in Southern California, they’re usually gone by late May.
How to Store: In the fridge.  They should keep about a week in their pods.  After blanching and preparing, the shelled favas keep a few days, but rinse in water before using if you prepared them in advance.
Note: There is a potentially fatal disease called favism, that is an allergic reaction to fava beans.  While very rare, it can affect some people of African, Mediterranean, or Southeast Asian descent.

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Eating the Vines (aka Pea Tendrils)

27 Wednesday Mar 2013

Posted by in Beans and Peas, Flowers, Green, Leafy, Miscellany, Spring, Vegetables

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True Confessions time:pea tendrilsI despise peas.  They are the eyeballs of the vegetable world, quite literally – tiny, pasty eyeballs that show up to ruin pea plantotherwise lovely dishes, like carbonara and shrimp with lobster sauce and, worst of all, the ubiquitous fish and chips “with mushy minted peas.”  How on earth does anyone think that sounds the least bit appetizing???

But I digress.  Spring as they may hearken, it will be a long time before you see a post about English peas on this blog, which is why I felt something of a personal victory in purchasing pea tendrils at the market on Sunday.

I’m not sure if they’re the tendrils of shelling peas or pod peas (HUGE difference to pea haters, by the way – snap and sugar peas are just fine, thank you), or if they just mix them all in the bin and it doesn’t matter, but to purposefully (and rather expensively) purchase things that might have some connection to the peas I deplore is dedication to experimentation, my friends.

curling tendrilsIn short: slap my ass and call my Sally.  Or whatever the expression is.

Yup, you heard it here first: they’re delightful!  I assumed they would taste sort of like peas, so I mixed in the leftover nettle greens I had on hand as well just in case I hated them, but I needn’t have, and maybe even shouldn’t have, as the two greenspea tendrils vines have very different flavors and yes, my plate seriously resembled lawn clippings.  But the pea tendrils had a delicate nuttiness, a vegetative crunch without the grassy flavor so common in most greens, an underlying mild sweetness, and tasted just simply fresh.  It was spring on a plate.  Add to that the graceful curve of the vines’ tiny fingers flash-sauteed in hot oil and fresh garlic, the bright deep green, the shy head of a white flower poking out from a tiny swaddle of leaves and the entire thing took on something of a gentile air.  I wanted to slow sip pea flowera pale sparkling wine while discussing poetry in a cool mid-afternoon sun.  (Instead of shoveling food into my face before I pass out from exhaustion and drinking my wine like it’s shots of tequila while watching DVR’ed shows with closed captioning because the kids are asleep and my house is too small?  Yes.)

Pea tendrils are the young shoots of pea plants, which makes me so happy because snow peas are one of the few things that I have grown successfully more than once, except I forget to water them and they never produce pods.  But now I can just harvest the vines! pea vine climbing The older they get, the tougher, and some people say to ditch the thicker stems, but I used everything in the bag I bought and the thicker stems were simply slightly crispier – mine were probably young enough that nothing had gotten woody or chewy yet.

Look for young, spry-looking pea shoots without wilt or yellowing.  Many people chop them before cooking, and if you purchased long strings of them, you probably should, but my farmer sold them in roughly 3-inch long pieces, and they were perfectly manageable on a fork and retained their beautiful curls on the plate – half the fun in the first place.  The best method for cooking them seems to be exactly what I found:  very hot oil, throw them in for a quick saute and a minute later add garlic until you can smell it (the whole process goes fast – maybe even just three minutes start to finish), put on a plate with salt, and enjoy.  People that like spices add red pepper flakes, too.  I tossed mine with some pasta for a vegetarian dinner.  You might also serve them with a fried or poached egg.  You see what I’m going for here?  Keep it simple, folks.  Simple and spring-like.  And if you have time for a little poetry, let me know how that goes.  I’m jealous already.

curling tendrilsTrim? Conventional wisdom says that if you can see flowers, remove the stems nearby as they’ll be too thick to be appetizing, some even include the tendrils.  I think the tendrils are pretty and had no problem with thicker stems, but if you’re eating raw I would follow the advice.
Edible when raw?  Yes, but trim off the thicker stems.
Worth the price of organic? Hard to say.  Peas are traditionally considered a “clean” food, but I think that’s because you toss the pod.  I would definitely go organic for the tendrils – they just seem to invite pesticide residue based on how they grow.
Best with:  Simple, spring-like flavors – fresh garlic, lemon, radishes, eggs, plain grains – brown rice is as nutty as I’d go; heavy starches like bulgur or barley or beans would overpower the delicacy of the shoots, in my opinion.
In Season:   Spring
How to Store: They don’t keep well.  Use the day you buy them, the next day at the most.  Store in the fridge if you’re keeping them at all, but honestly, they wilt very fast.

Haricots Verts, Golden Wax and Other Sorta Green Beans

21 Sunday Oct 2012

Posted by in Beans and Peas, Fall, Green, Miscellany, Purple, Summer, Yellow

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I used to hate green beans as a kid.  Frankly, in most cases, I still do.  I don’t blame my mom for this – she bought high-quality frozen green beans as I recall – but to be honest?  They taste like vegetables.  Like the vegetables of kids’ tear-induced tantrums – a little sharp, a little bitter, and very, very green.  And they squeak.  Seriously.  Some people actually know them as squeaky beans.  And God forbid, in my opinion, you buy them canned.  Add to the squeaky bitterness a metallic aftertaste, and it’s like eating medical equipment.

I discovered 2 problems with my green bean past.  1) I was eating the wrong kinds, and 2) I was cooking them wrong.  Most of the time, if you buy something labeled green beans, it’s probably Kentucky Wonder or Blue Lake – a relatively fat, fleshy bean with a succulent pod surrounding thin, tiny seeds.  I’m sure plenty of people like the somewhat meaty, earthy flavor, especially when smothered in cream of mushroom soup and fried onions, but I am not one of those people.  I am, however, something of a Francophile, so I’m pretty sure many of those same green bean loving people think I’m merely being pretentious by saying that I hate green beans but I love Haricots Verts.  Which, yes, translates to “green beans,” I know.

But Haricots Verts are a different breed entirely from the fleshy cut variety that taints many a side dish.  For one thing, they don’t have to be green.  They come in purple and yellow and speckled and all sorts of beautiful colors.  Haricots Verts and their slender brethren are thin, dainty, unimposing in their somewhat parched state.  They crisp easily or soften and blend in with the crowd when necessary while still maintaining a wee bit of vegatative flavor.  They’re milder than their heartier cousins.  They still squeak, but I like to imagine more of a dainty accident than the bold mouse-like squeak of their friends.

As for eating them wrong, every blog and recipe I can recall commands steaming, blanching, boiling or microwaving.  And to that I respond: bleh!  It’s a good way to release some vitamins, sure, and to soften them up, of course, because they can get a bit stringy or a bit of a chewy-wood thing going on when they’re not cooked enough.  Sure.  But…bleh.  What a way to make them taste like earthy, mineral-y mush.  Nope, the trick I discovered?  Burn them.  Burn them all.  (And if you’re not picturing a creepy Donald Sutherland in Backdraft right now, you don’t watch nearly as many movies as I do, and also, I envy your uncluttered brain.)

I don’t like burnt food.  I scrape burnt toast, pick around burned roasts, hell, I throw out burned cookies and if you know me that’s practically a hangin’ crime for all the rules it violates, but green beans, as far as I can recall, are my one exception.  Get a little burn on them and all that metallic minerality takes on hints of something akin to a savory caramel, the last wee traces of succulence get dessicated into crispness, and you’re left with something sharp and sweet and so tasty we always end up eating all the green beans before we even touch the main.

When buying haricots verts and their friends, look for fleshy, bright beans that snap easily.  They shrivel and get tough and bendy as they dry out and get older, and as much as I like them drier, you want to do the drying, in the pan, not nature on the vine.  Any variety that’s young and slim will do (have I lived in Hollywood too long?) but I like ones labeled Haricot Verts,  Haricots Jaune (the thin yellow ones at the top), Golden Wax for something a bit fleshier (the ones in the red bowl), or these Purple Queens for Halloween – they look almost black.  All of them, really, are varieties of filet beans, so you can look for those, too.  Snip off the ends with the stem still attached, and burn away.

Burnt Green Beans

Any color Green beans
olive oil
Herbes de Provence (or at least Rosemary)
garlic cloves
sherry (optional)
goat cheese (optional)
sea salt

Heat enough olive oil in to lightly cover the bottom of a pan, preferably cast iron (you want a pan that will get nice and hot, and that’s not a brand new non-stick – the non-stick doesn’t give a great burn, though it’s serviceable if that’s all you’ve got).  Toss the green beans into the pan, and let them sit.  This is the hard part.  DON’T TURN THEM, toss them, or otherwise touch them.  Make something else, do the dishes, whatever, until they start to get a little burn on the bottoms.  (If your beans are on the fleshier side, you may want to add a healthy dose of sherry here to steam them open a little, then let them burn afterwards.)  Toss/flip and let them start to get a little burn on the other side – you don’t want them burnt beyond recognition, but you want some blistering/black color going on.  Chop the garlic (I like 2 cloves, but one will do.)  Sprinkle liberally with herbes de provence and stir.  Add the garlic and cook very briefly, until you can smell it, maybe 1 minute tops.   Put on a plate and sprinkle well with sea salt.  If you like goat cheese, mix some in just before you remove from heat – they’re AMAZING with goat cheese, but just as nice on their own if you’re not the dairy type.  Added bonus?   They don’t work well if you fuss over them, so screaming babies, rambunctious toddlers, and a big, balloon glass of wine can all be addressed while your green beans get nice and crispy.  THAT’S the kind of side dish I like.

Trim? Yes.  Snip off the stem end.  If they’re larger or fleshier, you may want to peel the string down the side as well, but younger specimens don’t need it.
Edible when raw?  Yes.
Worth the price of organic? Yes.  Green beans don’t make the Dirty Dozen, but they make the Dirty Twenty, and that’s enough chemicals for me, thanks.
Best with:  Stronger flavors – goat cheese, lemon/citrus, garlic, ginger, vinegars.  Woodsy flavors  like rosemary, sage, thyme and mushrooms complement nicely.  They hold up well as a side dish from everything to the lightest sole to the meatiest steak, so there are really no holds barred.
In Season:  Summer, though in warm-season climes like here in L.A, that actually means Late Spring and Early Fall, since the hot months are too hot for the vines to flower.
How to Store: In the fridge, in a produce box or loosely sealed plastic bag, they should keep for a few days.  If they start to get bendy or a little shriveled, they’ll still taste fine if you crisp-cook them as above; if you can see bean seeds outline through the tight, shriveled skin, they’ve crossed the hump and are no longer very tasty.