Fava Beans
March 26th, 2007
If you have a veggie garden in your backyard, I think one of the veggies you can grow to amend the soil is the fava beans. They boost up the nitrogen content when mixed in the soil.
Having a hard time to find the real fresh ones in the store, that was one of my choices for winter veggies to grow. As far as I know there is no one around us that has favism — no body seems to have fallen sick lately!
Now that the time for putting the summer vegetables in the ground is about to knock on our door, I finally had a chance to pick some of the fava beans. Needless to say these are the freshest fava beans I have ever had and they taste amazing. Along with favas, I also used stalks of green garlic for added flavor. Unfortunately not enough green onions, so we resorted to medium onion from the pantry. All in all, it is one of the classic dishes you can find this time of the year.
One thing you may experience when dealing with fava beans is that they turn black when you cut them. There is a trick that I can share with you: make a flour & water mix (about a handful in a 3 - 4 liters of water) and use that water to put the favas as you cut their heads.
Sometimes finding those young, fresh fava beans is not the easiest. If that’s the case, you can shell the old ones to use the inside only. That also reminds me of my other favourite dish with favas and artichoke.
One thing that is a must when eating this dish is the dill. Topping the dish with garlic yogurt mix and sprinkle fresh dill over them when serving. Usually eaten cold, maybe you may like it warmed up a bit.
- 1 lb of fresh fava beans
- 5 - 6 stalks of green garlic
- 1 medium onion (or 5 - 6 stalks of green onions)
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp sugar
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- Cut the heads of the fava beans, trim the edges if hard, cut into two and dump into flour & water mix
- Chop the onion into small pieces, cut the garlic stalks into 1cm (about 1/2 inch) diagonally.
- Heat up the olive oil, add the onion and garlic pieces. Cook until onions are translucent. Was the fava beans thoroughly and add to the onion & garlic. Close the lid, turn down the heat and shake the pot every now and then and cook without adding water for about 5 mins
- Add about 1 cup of hot water, salt and sugar. Close the lid and let cook with low heat about 30 - 40 mins. Every now and then give it a shake but do not open the lid to stir. After half an hour check if the beans cooked. If so, turn the heat off. Keeping the lid closed, let the dish cool down.
- Only after the dish is cooled down transfer into serving dish. Add garlic yogurt and sprinkle with fresh dill when eating
Enjoy!
April 2nd, 2007 at 9:25 pm
What a great collection of recipes, thank you! We found your site while we were researching a post on yogurt in cosmetic products.
Thanks and keep up the great work!
April 12th, 2007 at 6:15 am
Dear Fethiye–
As one deeply involved with the arts and culture of Turkey, I am so glad to have found such an attractive Turkish food site in English.
I’m giving a Turkish meze presentation for Whole Foods in Sarasota, Florida on Weds 18 April and I will mention your site to the class.
I’d like to ask you a couple of questions and propose some ways we might share our culinary passions, so would you please get in touch with me via my Turkish travel website:
http://hollychase.igc.org or by email: hollychase (at) earthlink.net
Iyi calismalar—- Holly
April 22nd, 2007 at 7:30 pm
Fethiye are those the long and large ones? Looks like they are the ones like back home. Then they have different name: broadbeans. Which i just bought a jar of it to cook . Ofcourse there is nothing like to get fresh ones from your own yard. But the only thing I can do is to go to my Greek grocery store.