A long piece of pork, fava beans, no chianti

[hrj]

This week's "try a new produce item every week" item was fava beans. (This may be a cheat because I think I've cooked them once before.) Also on tap was the other piece of pork tenderloin originally meant for last weekend.

Shell a bunch of fava beans and simmer in salted water until tender.

In the mean time, slice pork tenderloin across the grain into 1/2 inch slices. Heat some oil in a skillet and sear the pork on all sides then set aside. Brown a sliced onion in the same oil, then deglaze with a little red wine. Set the onions aside. Put about half an inch of red wine and a splash of wine vinegar in the skillet, plus a small handful of bay leaves, and heat to a simmer then add the pork back and simmer until the pork is cooked and tender. Remove the pork again and put the onions back in the pan. Add about a cup of tomato juice. Simmer until reduced to a thick sauce. Add the cooked fava beans and stir until the sauce reduces further to coat the beans. Combine in some attractive fashion with the pork so the pork gets a taste of the sauce. Consume.

The basic instructions I have for fava beans suggest removing the skins before cooking. I couldn't figure out how to do this and it seemed like too much trouble. After they'd been boiled, the skins looked like they'd pop off easily, but it would have been a lot of work to remove them even so -- and besides which, they seemed perfectly edible. So I didn't bother. The beans were nice -- sort of like edamame in flavor. In fact, next time maybe I'll just have them boiled in salt water without worrying about additional flavorings.

Comments

[shalmestere.livejournal.com]

Guter Spise has a receipt for favas cooked in beer....

[loup_noir]

We eat favas instead of popcorn when we have them. A little drizzle of olive oil is nice.

[albionwood.livejournal.com]

First time I tried Favas, I looked up recipes on the Web and got really confused - cooking times all over the map (from 5 minutes to 45), and instructions to cook and eat them in th epods, shell them and discard the pods but leave them in the skins, skin them, cook first then skin, etc. - basically every possible combination!

Having done it a few times now I'm beginning to understand. What you can do with them depends to a large degree on the stage at which they are picked, and which type of Fava they are, and whether they are dried or fresh. (OK, duh, but many recipes fail to state.)

Fresh young favas, especially the small-seeded Bell beans that are not found in stores but constitute the literal backbone of my cover crop, are best if shelled, boiled in the skins for a few minutes in salted water, drained, drizzled with olive oil and dusted lightly with garlic powder. I think they taste better than Edamame.

Most of the rich beany flavor is in the skins, so if you can get fresh young beans with tender skins they will be best. As the beans get more mature the skins get tougher, soon reaching a point where they are too leathery to be palatable. At that point they are best if cooked in the skins as above and then slipped out after cooling slightly; the trick here is not to overcook them so they become mushy (makes it hard to pop them out of the skins).

They are also very good if lightly boiled, then sauteed with chopped fennel root, garlic, and a little pancetta.

Haven't tried dried favas yet. I think they are the basis of Falafel.

Favas are a wonderful garden crop - plant them in October for April-May harvest. They grow vigorously, add nitrogen to the soil, and make beautiful fragrant flower clusters that attract all kinds of beneficial insects. An essential part of my crop rotation. (The icon is a pic of me standing upright in the cover crop in May)

[hrj.livejournal.com]

The other thing that's all over the map for favas is the reported caloric value -- possibly for the same reasons. I rather liked them, although the shelling process makes them a bit more labor intensive than I like on a weekday evening.

Shelling is tedious.

[albionwood.livejournal.com]

And at $2.50/lb in the pods, they get pretty expensive to buy. Super-cheap to grow though.

[j-i-m-r.livejournal.com]

Fresh favas yum yum. Our veggie guy had a fava U-pick last spring and we are still working our way through the favas. We picked lots. I need to finish them off before this year's U-pick.

I remove the beans from the pods. The ones from the U-pick then went into the freezer since we had so many. I usually blanch the beans; couple minutes in boiling water then put in an ice water bath. This works with fresh ones or the frozen ones because they blanch and de-frost at the same time. The purpose of blanching is to remove the skins. It is just as tedious or meditative as blanching almonds.

The little green favas then go in salad sometimes. More often than not they become fava goo. Put favas, salt, garlic and olive oil (truffle oil if you have it) in the food processor until you get spreadable green yummy stuff. Lately I've been spreading it on lavash bread and rolling it up with smoked white salmon and fresh tomato.

I've not yet made Casteau's (1604) recipe for fava bean tart (fresh not dried favas) but I'm likely to bring one to some SCA event this Spring.