Saffron Risotto with Fava Beans and Prosciutto

Fava beans, meet prosciutto. Prosicutto, fava beans. Let's throw some rice at them and toast the happy couple.

Ingredients
Olive oil
1 red onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 rounded cup Arborio rice
1 ladleful white wine
28 oz chicken and/or veggie broth
1 generous pinch saffron
2 lbs fava beans, shelled
3 oz prosciutto, sliced crosswise into strips
2-3 big handfuls baby arugula or spinach, chopped
1 handful flat leaf parsley, chopped (about 1 tbsp, or a bit more to taste)
1/2 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
2 tbsp pine nuts
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Bring a pot of water to a boil. Add the shelled favas and blanch for 2-3 minutes till the skins turn white (2 minutes for medium-sized beans and 3 minutes for large ones). Drain, run under cold water to cool, and peel.

Heat the broth with the pinch of saffron in a pot over medium heat until it begins to boil. Turn the heat down and simmer for a minute, then turn off the heat. Keep covered so it stays warm.

Meanwhile, heat a large dutch oven over medium heat. Add a glug of olive oil, wait a few moments for it to heat, then add the onion and saute, stirring, until it softens. Turn the heat down just a little. Add the garlic and saute for another 2-3 minutes, then stir in the rice and continue sauteing for 2 minutes more. Add a little more olive oil if needed.

Stir in a ladleful of dry white wine, and cook the rice, stirring occasionally, until the liquid is absorbed. Add a pinch or two of salt. Begin adding broth by the ladleful, allowing the rice to simmer (turn the heat down a touch more if it's more than a gentle simmer) and stirring every 30 seconds or so until the liquid is absorbed before adding the next ladleful.

Lightly toast the pine nuts in a pan and set aside.

When there is about a cup of broth left in the pot, head a glug of olive oil in a nonstick pan over medium heat. Add the prosciutto, scattering it in the pan so it doesn't stick together, and the fava beans. Saute, stirring, for a minute, then add the greens and a pinch of salt and continue to saute until the greens wilt. Turn off the heat, and douse liberally with freshly ground black pepper.

When there is just one ladleful of broth left to add, gently stir the fava beans and greens into the risotto. Add the last ladleful of broth, stir, then add the parsley and Parmesan and turn off the heat. Adjust salt and pepper to taste.

Serve into soup plates, sprinkle with a few pine nuts, garnish with parsley, and serve. Best eaten when it's still very warm but not piping hot.

Serves 2-3.

Wordless Wednesday: Fresh Fava Spread

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Fresh Fava Beans

Necessity, they say, is the mother of invention. And when fresh favas show up in your CSA box for the fourth week in a row, any patient fondness you had for the quaint pastime of shelling broad beans tends to give way to a sudden need to drastically reduce the proportion of your life spent wrestling them out of their pods as compared to, say, sleeping.

So here, then, are the shelling shortcuts that turned two big bags full of favas into one smallish bowl full of beans in about half the time that it would have taken me a few days ago. I suspect these have already been discovered by many fava aficionados, but here they are in detail for the rest of us.

Shortcut #1: Speedy Shelling

Step 1: Set yourself up with a pile of unshelled beans on one side of you and a big colander or bowl on the other. I found it easier to stand with the bowl below me (so that I could angle the beans down into the bowl more easily).

Step 2: Take a pod and hold it horizontally in front of you. With your right hand (if you're right-handed), pinch the first bean (within the pod) from the right between thumb and forefinger.

 

Step 3: Push the bean forward with the flat of your thumb, bending the pod until it breaks open. Try to place your thumb about a third of the way down the bean, and push diagonally (forward and to the left). You want to break the pod so that a little bit of bean is already sticking out (rather than breaking it right in the middle of two beans, in which case both will be stuck inside the pod).

Step 4: Keep pushing with your thumb, and pinch the pod to squeeze the bean forward and to the left, out of the pod and into the bowl. (Warning: once you get good at this, the beans start shooting out very quickly, so aim down into the bowl if you don't want beans zinging around your kitchen.)

Step 5: Move down the pod to the next bean, and repeat.

Play around with where exactly you're pushing on each individual bean until you find a sweet spot that allows you to break the pod and push the bean out in a single quick motion. When you find it, you'll be able to do the whole pod in just a couple seconds.


Shortcut #2: Faster Peeling

Step 1: Bring a pot of water to a rapid boil. Drop your shelled but still unpeeled favas in and blanch for 2 minutes or until the skins just start to turn white. Drain and run under cold water until the beans are about room temperature.

Step 2: Take each fava bean and break open the bottom of the bean (the fat end, where the skin is thickest). With your other hand, gently pinch the skin on the unbroken side, to squeeze the inner bean out through the opening you just created.

Saute your favas with olive oil, pancetta, and slivered garlic, or combine with other fresh and mild ingredients for a simple pasta or risotto. Favas remind me of fresh peas -- they seem to work best in dishes that are simple enough to complement their fresh, springy flavor without overpowering it.

Quinoa with Fresh Favas and Crispy Kale

We've been getting fresh fava beans in our CSA box. I'm still not sure if they're amazingly delicious, or if you just end up thinking they're amazingly delicious to justify all the effort that goes into preparing them. But either way, I suppose, you end up enjoying your dinner. This recipe only calls for a few, so it doesn't actually take too long, and although I think that perhaps you're supposed to do some complicated blanching thing with favas after getting them out of their outer pods, I am impatient and just used my fingernail to peel off their outer skin and it seemed to work fine. 

Ingredients
1/2 cup white quinoa
1/2 cup red quinoa
1 cup veggie or chicken broth
1-2 shallots, quartered lengthwise and sliced
3 stalks green garlic (bottom half only), sliced crosswise
One or two handfuls of fresh fava beans, shelled
Salt
1/2 bunch dino kale, sliced crosswise into strips


Rinse the quinoa well in a sieve, then set in a bowl of room-temperature water and let soak for 10-20 minutes. Rinse once more, and drain well.

Preheat the oven to 375.

Heat a little olive oil in a pot over medium heat. When hot, add the shallot, green garlic, and a pinch of salt, and saute for a 2-3 minutes until soft.

Add the quinoa and cook for another minute, stirring, then add the broth and just barely under 1/2 cup of water. Cover, bring to a boil, then reduce heat to let simmer 10 minutes.


Add the fava beans, stir once, replace the cover, and simmer for another ten minutes.

Meanwhile, toss the kale with a little olive oil, spread on a baking sheet, and roast in the oven for 6-10 minutes until crispy, stirring once.

Fluff the quinoa, and serve with small crispy pieces of roasted kale over the top.

Serves 2-3 as a side dish.