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| This is about 1/3 of my fava beans. Remember that fact later. |
They take about as much work as raking a lawn, too. As a matter of fact, when I researched how to cook and eat the fava, every single entry begins like this, "Although labor-intensive..."
Labor-intensive? Eh? They better be worth it!
At any rate, all the recipes went on to say that they are worth the extra work, delicious, buttery, the new rage, blah blah blah.
Since I have the favas here, and since they only way to eat them is to go ahead and do all the prep work, I decided to just jump into it and enjoy it.
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| Luke, I am your fava. |
First, you pull the beans out of their pods.
This part feels like something you should do in South Carolina, sitting on the porch with a glass of lemonade, while somewhere in the neighborhood someone plays a banjo, and neighbors stop by on their way home from work. Since I couldn't orchestrate all that, I did it in the kitchen with my husband and a glass of wine. It was almost as good.
Removing the beans from their pods will reduce an entire crisper-drawer's worth of fava bean pods into a very small pile of fava beans.
Once you have all the beans out, put them in a pot of boiling, heavily salted water for about three minutes.
After three minutes, plunge them immediately into an ice water bath. I add the emphasis because every.single.recipe. uses the words "plunge" and "immediately". They make it seem like such a dire requirement. As if tossing them quickly into the ice water would result in favas that are suddenly laced with arsenic. At any rate, don't lose any time. Just do it, okay?
You would think that all of this shelling and boiling and plunging would have the beans cooked, wouldn't you? Au contraire, mon frere.
The fun is not nearly over yet.
Next, you have to take each one of the little guys and slip him from his warm little sleeping bag. This will leave you with a pile of fava casings to throw away. But before you do, take a minute to appreciate the beautiful pale green color. Sherwin-Williams should name a paint color after them. I would buy "fava-bean-casing green" for my home. Wouldn't you?
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| "Pale green pants with nobody inside them." If you can identify the story and author of this quote, you will be the winner of my first ever giveaway. The prize is my unending love and appreciation. Just leave a comment below with the correct answer to enter. (Mom, you don't count.) |
Ahem. I digress. The beans do slip easily from their casing, resulting in an even smaller pile of beans. They are very cute, very green little guys.
Now, for my first ever cliff-hanger. Come back tomorrow, and I will tell you what I did to make the beans, which are now (finally) edible, into something you would want to eat.
