Recipe: Roman-inspired fava beans are good as side dish or on crostini
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| Late-season fava bean pods are long and fat. (Photos: Debbie Arrington) |
Our mild (and wet) spring elongated the season of one cool-weather favorite: Fava beans.
I’m still picking favas and I know I’m not alone. By late season, favas produce huge pods, 6 to 8 inches long and fat as thumbs. As big as they are, these pods contain only four or five beans. It usually takes 2 pounds of pods (or more) to produce 2 cups of beans.
Favas rank among the most time-consuming beans to prepare. First they must be shelled. Then, the individual beans should be skinned, especially when fully mature. (The skin has a bitter aftertaste.)
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| Those big pods yield this many beans. They still need to be skinned. |
But the result – the naked, emerald-green inner bean -- melts in your mouth.
To remove the skins, use this method: Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Plunge shelled beans into the boiling water. Boil for 2 to 3 minutes.
Remove the beans from the boiling water and plunge them into a bowl of cold water. Wait a few minutes, then peel the beans. Use your thumbnail or a paring knife to nick the bean’s skin, then the skin will slip right off.
Even with this trick, expect it to take 20 minutes or more to peel 2 cups. Is it worth the effort? If you love favas, yes!
This is my favorite way to cook fava beans. Besides serving as a side dish, it also doubles as fava spread for crostini.
The romaine lettuce blends with the bright green of the beans and provides some extra moisture as the vegetables cook. If substituting scallions, use the green parts, too; it just intensifies the green.
To be truly Roman-style fava beans, add ½ cup chopped prosciutto with the beans. Otherwise, consider these favas Roman-inspired.
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| These are shelled, skinned and ready to cook. |
Roman-inspired fava beans
Makes 4 side-dish servings
Ingredients:
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| Ready to serve. |
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Garden Checklist for week of Nov. 3
November still offers good weather for fall planting:
* If you haven't already, it's time to clean up the remains of summer. Pull faded annuals and vegetables. Prune dead or broken branches from trees.
* Now is the best time to plant most trees and shrubs. This gives them plenty of time for root development before spring growth. They also benefit from fall and winter rains.
* Set out cool-weather annuals such as pansies and snapdragons.
* Lettuce, cabbage and broccoli also can be planted now.
* Plant garlic and onions.
* Keep planting bulbs to spread out your spring bloom. Some possible suggestions: daffodils, crocuses, hyacinths, tulips, anemones and scillas.
* This is also a good time to seed wildflowers and plant such spring bloomers as sweet pea, sweet alyssum and bachelor buttons.
* Rake and compost leaves, but dispose of any diseased plant material. For example, if peach and nectarine trees showed signs of leaf curl this year, clean up under trees and dispose of those leaves instead of composting.
* Save dry stalks and seedpods from poppies and coneflowers for fall bouquets and holiday decorating.
* For holiday blooms indoors, plant paperwhite narcissus bulbs now. Fill a shallow bowl or dish with 2 inches of rocks or pebbles. Place bulbs in the dish with the root end nestled in the rocks. Add water until it just touches the bottom of the bulbs. Place the dish in a sunny window. Add water as needed.
* Give your azaleas, gardenias and camellias a boost with chelated iron.
* For larger blooms, pinch off some camellia buds.
* Prune non-flowering trees and shrubs while dormant.
* To help prevent leaf curl, apply a copper fungicide spray to peach and nectarine trees after they lose their leaves this month. Leaf curl, which shows up in the spring, is caused by a fungus that winters as spores on the limbs and around the tree in fallen leaves. Sprays are most effective now.
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