Fava Beans ... and a little Chianti?

No doubt, at the mention of fava beans many of us are transported back to the time we first heard Hannibal Lecter's horrifying admission, “I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti,” in the 1991 thriller, The Silence of the Lambs.  Creepy film ... and one of the very few lines of movie dialogue I think I'll never forget!

Fava beans are also known as broad beans, pigeon beans, horse beans, or windsor beans.  They are one of the oldest cultivated plants and were eaten by the ancient Greeks and Romans.  Fava beans have a distinct flavor and creamy texture that makes them a tasty addition to a wide variety of dishes.  They may be enjoyed seasonally, or dried for winter use.

Fava beans are commonly used as a cover crop because they grow quickly and produce lots of lush foliage. Like most legumes, fava beans are nitrogen fixers.  They replenish the soil with this vital nutrient. Many farmers plant fava beans, then, after growth has peaked, plow them directly back into the field to act as fertilizer ... so called "green manure".

This was a new crop for me.  I was interested in both the cover crop qualities AND the resulting food crop.  In North Carolina, fava beans are the earliest beans to come out of the garden.  We plant them in the fall. The beans grow into bushy plants with tapering leaves and bloom all winter.  The flowers are lovely and pleasant smelling.  In late winter / early spring the plants produce giant bean pods ... 8 - 9 inches long!

I wasn't sure when to harvest them. I was watching for maximum swelling of the bean pods. Today was the day! I might have been able to pick them a week earlier - a few beans showed signs of yellowing - but recent rains helped plump them up a bit.

Andrew and I worked in the garden all morning, putting up bean trellises, harvesting spinach, and finally ... picking the fava beans. By this point, the sun was getting hot and I was getting tired!

No rest for the weary, though. The fava beans had to be processed, and they require an extra step beyond what is typically needed to prepare beans. First, shell them out of the bean pods.  The pods are lined with a pillowy white material that protects the seeds inside.We ended up with 7 1/2 pounds of beans!

Next, boil in salted water .... or steam ... for 1 - 3 minutes. Then skin each bean, removing the waxy outer covering.  We found the easiest way to do this was to slit the skin with a knife, then gently squeeze.  The bean will slip right out!

Here's what you get ... the bean skins and the bright green beans.  I steamed these for 3 - 4 minutes because they didn't look ready to skin until then. But they were a little overdone ... you can see some of them have broken up. Next time I'll keep it under 3 minutes.

Use them in your favorite recipe! The time you've lost preparing these beans is made up during the cooking time. After the initial steaming/boiling, these beans took no time to finish cooking.  We prepared them simply with a little butter, a little olive oil, some fresh garlic, salt and pepper.

Delicious ...  with or without the nice Chianti!