Take One Ingredient: Broad Beans

The asparagus season is all but over, but taking its place in my affections for the next month or two is the humble broad bean (vicia fabia), known variously as the fava, faba or field bean.  I'm not sure if I'd serve them with human liver and a nice chianti, but I'm certainly looking forward to a few weeks of beany excess.

Broad beans are one of those vegetables that many people think they dislike.  When old, grey and leathery, they have a bitterness that furs the mouth in a most unpleasant way (umami gone bad).  However, when young and green they are sweet and delicious.  

There are four ages to the broad bean:

1. Young and slender - when the pods are no thicker then your finger and the beans the size of your pinkie nail, they can be cooked and eaten pods and all
2. Young and not so slender - when the beans are the size of your index fingernail, they are still sweet and green and tender
3. Getting older - when the beans are bigger than your thumbnail and wearing grey overcoats (think of school-dinner broad beans here) they are bitter and tough - but can be saved!
4. Over the hill - maybe

Most of the forthcoming recipes you'll see from me here will use the younger beans, but the others are useful nonetheless.

The younger beans lend themselves to salads - with herbs (savoury, fennel, chervil, parsley...) with olive oil and lemon juice or best of all, with ham (parma ham, iberico ham or even lardons of bacon). 

With older beans, the best policy is to cook them then slip off the tough grey skins then gently reheat them again, puree them or use them in salads as above.

Once they're over the hill, you can always go for dried beans - roasted and salted (great as a nibble with sherry) or even to make a kind of falafel.

Like peas, broad beans benefit from being sparklingly fresh.  The natural sugars quickly turn to starch once picked, so the fresher the sweeter and better.  I've been growing my own this year (not many, just half a dozen plants - enough to keep me in a few salads), and I also buy them from my local greengrocer when I can.   Growing your own does mean you have more control over what age you buy them at too - I've sadly never seen the tiny ones on sale.

Mine are currently growing in pots on the patio and making a nice edition I think - I'm particularly fond of the pretty black and white flowers that run up and down the long stems.  The bees seem to like them too! 

tags: broad bean  

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