Barley and Spring Onion Soup With Fava Beans Recipe (2024)

FAQs

Do fava beans need to be soaked before cooking? ›

To prepare your fresh fava beans, you have to soak them to loosen the protective outer layer: pour 10 cups of water into a pot for every pound of beans, and let them soak overnight to loosen their outer layers. As an alternative, you can boil the beans for three minutes and then let them soak in hot water for one hour.

First, you cook the fava beans — a multi-hour affair, since those tough skins need softening — over low heat so the insides don't turn to mush while the skins tenderize. Helou's workaround: Soak the favas with a little baking soda to help soften the skins, then drain and rinse them before cooking in fresh water.

Fava beans are also used in agriculture to ward off pests from other crops - a few of them just have to be hidden underground to save the neighboring plants. The beans enrich the soil with nitrogen, which is why they are the basis of natural fertilizers such as green manure.

The skin is tougher than the bean itself, and somewhat bitter. I think, although some connoisseurs disagree, that removing the skin greatly improves the taste and texture of favas. The trade-off is that it takes a lot of time.

When a person with G6PD deficiency eats fava beans, a condition known as "favism" can be triggered due to the presence of naturally occurring compounds vicine and convicine in the beans. These compounds are relatively heat stable and are not removed by cooking.

Generally these small beans will have a much improved textured after peeling, but very small dried fava beans may be eaten with skins on after a prolonged cooking process. I always cook then peel, but some recipes may specify cooking with skin on.

Like most legumes, fava beans contain two types of fiber— soluble and insoluble. However, they are especially rich in insoluble fiber. Insoluble fiber promotes a healthy digestive system, regularity and a balanced gut biome, and eating adequate amounts of it will help keep your body feeling its best.

Cook, the peeled fava beans until tender. This can take anywhere from 10–45 minutes depending on the size of your beans. Test them every 10 minutes or so for doneness by taking out beans and slipping them out not mushy. The smaller the beans, the faster they will cook.

Here's the thing: Beans that have not been soaked ahead of time will always take longer to cook, but they will, indeed, cook. But timing aside, sometimes we actually like to cook beans straight from dry, as is the case with this easy black bean soup recipe.

Dried fava beans are also known as field beans, horse beans or even tic beans (a name for the very smallest varieties). In US English however the name fava refers to fresh broad beans, infamously washed down with Italian wine.

Who eats the most fava beans? ›

While they are consumed all over the world, fava beans are particularly popular in Mediterranean and Middle Eastern countries.

They are widely used in Egyptian, Iranian, North African, and Middle Eastern cuisines. But I was surprised to learn that in Columbia, China, Japan, and Ethiopia, the fava bean is a staple in cooking as well. The fava bean has recently received the royal treatment as a key component in King Charles' Coronation Quiche!

Although fava beans are still very popular in Mediterranean, Middle Eastern and African cuisine, they began to fall out of fashion in the UK around the time of the Agricultural revolution.

But for some reason, eating beans can result in more than just bloating and flatulence. Fava beans, also known as broad beans, can cause some people to experience a sudden rapid breakdown of their red blood cells, a condition known as hemolytic anemia.

Further fungi on faba

In addition to chocolate spot and leaf blight, faba bean also gets affected by disease causing rust and downy mildew. Rust, caused by the fungal species Uromyces viciae-fabae, is spread through its spores by the wind.

Modern cooking websites often say it doesn't matter. In a way, they're both right. Soaking beans can help improve the texture of the final product once the beans are cooked and reduce the gas produced when the food is being digested. But it isn't necessary to soak them.

The easiest way to do this is to boil the shucked fava beans and cool them in running water or an ice bath, then pop them out of their skins like it's some fiddly, stress-relieving game. Eat one! If it's not completely tender yet, boil the beans a little longer until they are.

If you are short on time, choose lentils or adzuki beans, which cook quickly and don't need soaking. To add more flavor, consider cooking your beans in stock or broth instead of water (and see our chapter on seasonings for more ideas).