Subject: Fava Bean Recipes

From: [email-masked] (Cynthia Miller)
Date: 10 Jun 1993 13:48:11 GMT

I have been reading all the info posted on Fava Beans and purchased a
 can.  Then I realized that I haven't a clue how to prepare them. Does
 anyone have a Fava Bean recipe or do you eat them alone like lima
 beans?
		       Thank you, Cynthia Miller

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From: [email-masked] (John Wexler)
Date: 10 Jun 93 15:28:34 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>,
[email-masked] (Cynthia Miller) writes:
|>  I have been reading all the info posted on Fava Beans and purchased a
|>  can.  Then I realized that I haven't a clue how to prepare them. Does
|>  anyone have a Fava Bean recipe or do you eat them alone like lima
|>  beans?
I've completely lost track of which ones are fava beans, but if they are
"el ful", then this is the classic dish, which ought to be as old as the
pyramids and deserves a mention in rec.food.historic:

Ful medames

Hard boil some eggs, preferably very gently and for a LONG time.
Season the beans with crushed fresh garlic, lemon juice, olive oil,
fresh herbs to taste (try parsley), salt and black pepper.
Serve (cold, but I don't think that's a firm rule) in a bowl with a
shelled egg on each serving. Crush the egg into the beans with your fork
as you eat them. Avoid polite company for about a day.

If fava beans are not ful beans, get some ful beans anyway and try this.
If you get dried beans, as opposed to beans in tins, you MUST give them
the full standard bean treatment - long soak, ten minutes hard boiling,
then simmer, all BEFORE you put any salt near them.

    John Wexler
    Edinburgh

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From: [email-masked] (David Adams)
Date: 10 Jun 93 10:15:00 CDT

In article [email-masked], [email-masked] (Cynthia Miller) writes:
| I have been reading all the info posted on Fava Beans and purchased a
| can.  Then I realized that I haven't a clue how to prepare them. Does
| anyone have a Fava Bean recipe or do you eat them alone like lima
| beans?
|		       Thank you, Cynthia Miller

Well nobody was suggesting that you should go and eat some.  ;^)

Saw this program on TV the other day about native Africans eating gigantic
larve (big white worm or grub) of some insect.  Colleen Needles (anchor woman
on channel 4 in MPLS) ate one for the camera.  
 
---
--David C. Adams  Statistician  Cray Research Inc.  [email-masked]
              -Sourdough and Ham-  N0WWN

      - Minnesotans for Global Warming!

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From: [email-masked]
Date: 10 Jun 93 13:32:11 PST

> |		       Thank you, Cynthia Miller

I tried these out on our local Culinary group, with rave results. I used about
a pound of the large, greenish colored fava beans (the ones that look like
limas), and soaked them for 14 hours. You then need to peel them, because even
after cooking in the crockpot for 8 hours on high, the skin will still be too
tough to eat. I just found out recently that our local middle eastern grocery
has them already peeled. Figures. I suppose that the canned ones are already 
cooked, and so need only garnishing, etc. Try cooking some onions, garlic,
adding cumin, and LOTS of pepper and salt. I also added some bacon, but that
changes it from Ful Mudammes to some wierd invention of my own.

The group that ate them found them good, but much like lima beans...it is only
what you did to them that made them interesting.

Let me know if you need specific amounts...I wrote down everything I did, and
can share it with you if you're interested.

--Have fun!
--Anne-Marie Rousseau
e-mail: [email-masked]

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From: [email-masked] (Stephen Bloch)
Date: 10 Jun 93 23:38:30 GMT

[email-masked] (Cynthia Miller) writes:
> can.  Then I realized that I haven't a clue how to prepare them....

There's a recipe in Platina (I think) for fava beans mashed with figs
and then fried with chopped onions and your favorite (old world) spices.
Sounds grotesque, I know, but it's not bad.

Modern falafel is sometimes (always?) made with ground favas as well as
chickpeas.

And yes, you can eat them just like limas, making sure you've taken off
the tough hull (the canned ones may or may not have hulls).  But remember
that limas have been bred for sweetness and favas haven't, so you may want
different spicing.

-- 
					Stephen Bloch
				    [email-masked]

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From: [email-masked] (Pat Churchill)
Date: Fri, 11 Jun 1993 00:41:38 GMT

>       - Minnesotans for Global Warming!  
A delicacy for the NZ Maori was the huhu grub, a large larval form of
the huhu bug.  I suppose about index finger size.  They get trotted
out here from time to time but there usually aren't many takers :-)

-- 
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
            The floggings will continue until morale improves              
    [email-masked]  Pat Churchill, Wellington New Zealand     
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

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From: [email-masked] (Bill Silvert)
Date: Fri, 11 Jun 1993 12:02:35 GMT

In <[email-masked]> [email-masked] writes:

>tough to eat.

Favas are considered a delicacy in Portugal, especially in the Alentejo
region.  They are served with the skins on, but you remove the skin when
you eat them.  Kind of messy.  They are cooked with vast amounts of
coriander.

-- 
William Silvert, Habitat Ecology Division, Bedford Inst. of Oceanography
P. O. Box 1006, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, CANADA B2Y 4A2.  Tel. (902)426-1577
InterNet Address: [email-masked]

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From: [email-masked] (David Friedman)
Date: Fri, 11 Jun 1993 20:17:16 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked]
> Sounds grotesque, I know, but it's not bad.

This is Fried Broad Beans, from Platina book 7.

"Put broad beans that have been cooked and softened into a frying pan with
soft fat, onions, figs, sage, and several pot herbs, or else fry them well
rubbed with oil and, on a wooden tablet or a flat surface, spread this into
the form of a cake and sprinkle spices over it."

We find it pretty good.

For other early recipes presumably using broad beans:

Tarte of Beans in A Proper Newe Book of Cookery, 
Makke in Form of Cury,
Fuliyyah in Ibn al-Mabrad (meat, fava beans, thyme, coriander, garlic, egg,
pepper, coriander seed)

I could post recipes for all of these if people are interested, but they
are on the machine at home and I am posting for work, so I will have to
remember to bring them in.

 David Friedman