Weekend Smug Satisfaction: Conquering Fava Beans

My intention in starting this blog was to focus on fresh, nutritious and easy recipes that ultimately satiate your taste for good food, nourish your body - but take minimal time and effort to prepare. Which makes fresh fava beans a bit of an anomaly. While they're still in season and incredibly delicious, I have to caution you that these will take about 40 minutes to prepare and cook. Cook these on the weekend while sipping a glass of wine and you'll feel grounded and accomplished. Cook these on a weeknight while you're hungry and you may feel more frustrated and hungry than smugly satisfied.

So, onwards. Why fresh fava beans? Nutritional benefits, according to Livestrong (hey, love him or hate him - the website is still a fantastic source of information):

A one cup serving of cooked fava beans provides 187 calories, 33 g of carbohydrates, 13 g of protein, and 1 g of fat. Fava beans are an excellent source of fiber with 9 g per one cup serving. Additionally, fava beans offer the benefit of 177 mcg of folate, or 44 percent of the daily value. Copper, manganese, and phosphorus are also key nutrients present in fava beans. Canned fava beans have 500 mg of sodium in one cup, while the fresh variety has only 18 mg.

Now, here's what you do with them:

1. Buy: About 2 lbs. of fresh beans. 2lbs. will yield just over a cup of beans, in the end, and you'll lose all of the beans' shells.
2. Shelling Part One: Bean by bean, you'll tear or cut off the tip, pull on the stalk or 'string' on the horizontal side of the bean, open the shell and just keep the 4-5 beans inside each shell. They will look like wax-coated beans. Depending on how many you buy, this is where you'll spend most of your time.
3. Cook: Boil them or steam them. I boiled mine between 5 - 10 minutes.
4. Cool: Remove the now shriveled-looking beans from the hot pot, and run under cold water to cool off. 
5. Shelling Part Two: Once cooled, you're going to take each bean and apply manual pressure in order to pop the smaller bean out of the waxy, shriveled shell. You'll be left with shiny, bright green beans that look like the photo above.
6. Dress Them Up: This is the easy part. Add some olive oil, salt (or truffle salt, in my obsessed manner), ground pepper and cilantro to taste. If you're among those that dislike cilantro, try basil, parsley, or another fresh herb to your liking. 
7. Chill and Enjoy! A perfect light summer salad served cold, by itself, as an accompaniment to grilled fish, or tossed with greens.
8. Extra points: Try this with liver and chianti. Ja!

Until next time,

- P