Fava Beans

Fava beans have been cultivated for many millennia. It feels like ours have been growing for years now but we just recently harvested a full meal worth. They are a lot of work but the beans are one of my favorites. The picture above shows about a pound, pound and a half in the pod.


Here they are 20 minutes later sans pod but in the husk. They can be eaten like this but they aren't very good with the husk. We eat them raw often by slicing them out of the husk. They taste a little like soy beans. In order to use them for a meal you really need to get all of the husks off in a hurry. The best way to do that is to blanch them - a quick 1 or 2 minutes in boiling water followed by cold water rinse.


After blanching you squeeze each bean out of it's shell - another 15 min. or so. The result is a is a pile of delicious beans that are packed with protein, fiber, and other good stuff including L-dopa (dopamine) which is said to effect everything from memory to creativity to sex drive.

I made a pasta to mix these into. I don't cook with recipes much but if you want to try it yourself I made it with with chopped kalamata olives, a juiced lemon, garlic, olive oil, fresh parsley, a tiny bit of fresh mint and the fava beans. It came out pretty good - sorry I can't give the proportions, I just make it up as I go and have the memory of a brick.

Anyway, viva the fava.