Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Broad Bloody Beans

broad beanDon't ever mention broad bloody beans to me again. I spent the weekend lifting plants, stripping 40lbs (18kg) of bean pods from them, carrying them home, shelling them, blanching them, draining them, popping them one by one out of their skins, then freezing them in handy portions. I reckon I spent about six hours doing it in total, and I had help from Ed and the kids at most stages.

Anyone know any good broad bean recipes?

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

Broad Bean risotto

Boil broad beans until soft.

Chop an onion and squash a couple of cloves of garlic, and fry them gently in a little olive oil in a saucepan. Add a knob of butter and sufficient arborio rice for the number of people who will be eating the risotto. Stir until rice is coated then add vegetable stock slowly a little at a time until it has mostly been absorbed. Keep doing this until risotto is lmost ready.

Add the drained broad beans and continue cooking with the last of the stock, until the risotto is creamy and not-quite-dry.

Stir in lots of freshly grated Parmesan or Gran Padano and serve.

Neil said...

Gosh, I don't bother taking them out of their skins. People can do that when eating them if they really want to.

Gid said...

I hope you kept all the pods.. 5lbs of bean pods to 1 gallon of boiling water, leave to steep for four days or so, strain and add 3lb of sugar, pitch yeast and ferment..

Broad bean wine.. it's almost as good as pea pod wine..

Unknown said...

Our two favourites are fritata and falafels.

Jamie Oliver has a good recipe for the falafels in one of his "at home" programs. It's something like 500g shelled beans, garlic, cumin, chilli, dsp flour. Blend, form into balls / burgers and deep fry for 2 - 5 mins, until very brown on outside but still neon green on inside. Not a very good description I'm afraid.

I recently discovered a broad bean paste which is very good as a pesto substitute, or on jacked potatoes.

I like the idea of broad bean wine :)

Anonymous said...

I've been getting broad beans in my veggie box delivery for a few weeks and have been scouring the internet for recipes (I grew up in Canada, and they don't seems to be as common there.) So far, broad bean risotto has been good; geraldine's recipe looks lovely. Pasta with pesto, potatoes and broad beans is also surprisingly good. I mostly followed the recipe below, and would make it again, especially if the beans were already blanched sans skin.

http://www.abelandcole.co.uk/Content/Recipes/beansbroad.htm#recipe8

Cheers,
kt

Blicky Kitty said...

They don't look very bloody :)

Frankie said...

Broad Bean Wine???? Sarah Raven does a good hummusy type dip for the big old ones:

150g shelled beans
3 tbsp olive oil
juice & grated zest of a lemon
handful of chopped mint
slivers of pecorino cheese.

boil beans till tender, squeeze them out of skins if you have time and pulse with the rest.

Serve on toasted, sliced baguette which has been drizzled in olive oil and scraped over by a garlic clove.

Yum

Z said...

But why didn't you eat them as they were ready? Young broad bean skins are fine, it's the old ones that are tough.

I've got a recipe for a lovely broad bean salad, but I only made it once because it took ages. I'll let you have it if you like, but it was a lot of work. I'd go with the other recipes which sound lovely.

Yellow said...

We ALWAYS take the skins off broad beans - it doesn't take that long to do, then drop them in boiling water, take them out & the skins come off easily. We add them to salads, ot sortee them in butter with a little lemon juice. Simple but delicious. Even the kids eat them. I used to hate the hard bulletts my mothe rin law fed me, but skinless they're devine.
Ben, the paste sunds like a nice idea.

Neil said...

I can see the point if skinning old beans and I suppose some of ours are reaching that point.

You can of course serve them just as a side veg like peas without having to put them in some complicated recipe. And they go well in salad with bacon.

Melanie Rimmer said...

I'm with Yellow. With skins on they're horrible unless very young and fresh. SKins off they're lovely, but a lot of effort when you're doing them in bulk.

The reason I have so many is that last season was a wash-out, but the weather broke in October/November and I plated lots of overwintering crops such as broad beans, onions, garlic and shallots. We've been picking the beans as we've gone along but there was really more than we could eat. The plants were finished and anyway we wanted the space to plant other stuff. So we lifted them and stripped all the remaining beans off.

My shed is now full of plaited onions and garlic, and my freezer is full of beans. So really this is 2007's harvest - some redemption for a dreadful year.

benjymous said...

Fry them with a little butter and lemon juice - delicious :)

Bramblemoon Farm said...

Wow, that is a heck of a lot of beans! I am in awe:)
Sorry I don't have any recipes. I think they are used quite a bit in Italian cooking.

Anonymous said...

Chorizo and broad beans go really well together

marigold said...

I just had them with a simple balsamic vinaigrette and satsuma slices. I got the idea from somewhere online but I cannot find the source now. Thought it was here. Maybe not.

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