Fava Beans Two Ways: Friday Fail Edition

In addition to the dried fava beans we already had from last summer, we have been getting fresh fava bean pods the last couple of weeks, just like last year.  I decided to try to make both kinds (dried and fresh) for dinner one night when I couldn't come up with any better ideas.  In hindsight, maybe I should have thought harder about other meal possibilities.

The inside of a fava bean pod is pretty cool.  Each bean is surrounded by this spongy material, which makes them look so comfy cozy in there.

The first recipe I got started on seemed promising as it had a base of tomato, garlic, and onion that all got chopped up and cooked together. 

Along with some seasoning and the beans, that was basically all there was to it.  Doesn't seem like there would be a whole lot to mess up.  Unfortunately, my interpretation of "shelled, dried fava beans" perhaps was not the same as the recipe's.  That, combined with my reliance on HH to guide me when cooking dried beans, was this dish's downfall. 

If I had paid more attention to how to prepare dried beans, I would have known that they usually take hours to cook after soaking in water overnight.  Note that the recipe uses less than an hour of total cooking time.  And I don't know if you have ever seen a fava bean, but they are quite large in comparison to others like black or kidney beans.  And by quite large, I mean huge (at least the ones we have been getting).

So, the beans took forever to cook and were not done in time for dinner.  I ended up adding a bunch of extra water to the pot and letting everything cook together until bedtime.  A couple days later, I chopped/mashed up the beans and put them in enchiladas, so all was not lost. 


The second recipe with the fresh fava beans went a lot more smoothly, but the results were a little bland.  (I did the Middle Eastern Fava Bean Pilaf about halfway down the page.)  I think the recipe was pretty standard for a rice pilaf (though I've never actually made one before).  I ended up squeezing in quite a bit of lemon juice and cilantro for flavor, and thought it could have used even more. 

Sorry for my lack of pictures of the finished product.  By the time this was ready to eat I was too annoyed at my overall failure and didn't feel like taking any more pictures, I guess.

In order to redeem myself (and because we still had a bunch of fresh beans), I made this recipe that was very similar to a dish HH cooked up last summer.   The fresh fava beans were combined with orzo pasta, garlic, and onions for a nice lunch.  I have decided that I much prefer the taste of the fresh beans to the dried ones, which is a bummer since we have a bunch of dried ones still to use.