This salad scream Spring! to me like no other, even though it’s so perfect for those hot hot hot summer days when you don’t feel like eating anything warm or heavy (for us Bostonians, that’s like the last two weeks!). I love this salad because it has such a diverse yet rich mix of flavors. Fragrant fennel root slices, fresh mint, zingy scallions, and nutty fava beans come together beautifully when tossed with a bit of Parmesan, salt, and pepper.
This was my first time preparing fava beans, though, and it’s surprisingly more tedious than you might think! I didn’t have this luxury, but if you can get a bunch of friends to come over and help shell these beans (twice!), it’ll make the experience a lot more fun.
Yes, you heard me right. These beans need to be de-shelled TWICE. First, you need to remove the outer pod. The easiest way to do this is to grab the pointy end of the bean (the part that used to be attached to the plant), and try to pull off the stringy bit that separates the two halves of the pod. Crack open the pod and remove the inner pods.
Blanch the pods in boiling water briefly (like 1 minute), and then shock them in ice cold water. This keeps them nice and bright green. Next, take each little pod and remove the outer covering to reveal the beautiful, bright green fava bean! The lower right picture shows the progressions of all three steps.
Fava Fennel Mint Salad
Adapted from Simply Recipes
Ingredients
2-3 lbs fresh fava beans, (1 1/2 to 2 cups shelled)
Salt
1 small bulb fennel, thinly sliced
2 ounces Parmesan cheese, shaved
10 fresh mint leaves, thinly sliced
2 scallions, sliced (I used purplette onions)
Extra virgin olive oil
Lemon juice (I used lime juice)
Freshly ground black pepper
Prepare fava beans as described above. Toss together fava beans, fennel, and scallions. Drizzle with extra virgin olive oil, add salt and pepper, and mix. Squeeze in lemon juice to taste (I squeezed half a small lime). Mix in Parmesan cheese and mint leaves and toss to combine.
Serve and Enjoy!
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This was timely. I just got fava beans and fennel in this week’s farm share too. My serving size will be a lot smaller than what you describe above but I can wing it easy enough.
Pretty sure you can find frozen or dried fava beans too if you keep your eyes open. Not as common as other beans but definitely around.
yummy..i lvoe fava beans, and my mum makes a version where they are cooked with beef n rice, and served with yogurt. why do moms always know whats best? lol
I love fava beans!!!! usually i just stir fry it quickly with fresh scallions.. sooo good =)
What a refreshing salad! I love the detailed instructions for shelling the fava beans. I recently posted a recipe using fava beans (http://www.lindentea.com/?p=2707). Would you mind if I give a link to your site since you explained it so well? 🙂
By the way shelled, peeled, frozen fava beans are available in Middle Eastern stores.
megi
Frozen fava beans sounds enticing, as they are a lot of work to prepare! I do wonder how the flavors compare between dried, frozen, and fresh.
Yes seriously! Moms know best, although I never ate fava beans growing up!
Ooh, stir frying with scallions DOES sound good. I still have some edamame at home, ha ha . . maybe I’ll try it on my edamame.
Hi megi,
Thanks so much for the kind comments. Please feel free to link to my blog. Thanks!
Jen
Thank you Jen.
This looks soo good!! And your photos are beautiful!! I really hope you will submit this recipe and more to my new “vegan finds” site:
http://www.findingvegan.com
Kathy
Thanks for sharing this recipe. I used it as inspiration to make a fava & mint salad without the fennel. The favas were delicious!
Awesome! Thanks so much. I love fava beans too. 🙂