A Sarah Raven recipe – she uses tagliolini, but fine spaghetti or linguine would do just as well.
Preparation and cooking: about 20 minutes
Serves 4
Ingredients
250g broad beans, shelled weight
350g tagliolini or fine spaghetti
75g fried pancetta or prosciutto
2 tbsp finely chopped summer savory or thyme, to serve
grated parmesan, to serve
For the beurre blanc:
4 tbsp white wine
4 tbsp white wine vinegar
1 heaped tbsp finely chopped shallots
salt and black pepper
175g unsalted butter, cold and diced
Method
To make the beurre blanc, reduce the wine, vinegar, shallots, salt and pepper in a small saucepan until you have only a tablespoon of liquid left. Whisk in the butter bit by bit over a very low heat, until thick and creamy. Season. Keep it warm in a vacuum flask or bain-marie.
Bring a pan of water to the boil. Cook the beans in it for 4 minutes. Remove them, saving some of the cooking liquid, and cool them quickly in a sieve under cold running water. Pop some of the bright green beans out of their skin by pinching with thumb and forefinger – this adds a wonderful colour. Discard the skins and puree half the beans with a tablespoon of the cooking water.
Cook the pasta in salted boiling water until just al dente, leaving a tablespoon or two of the cooking liquid in the pan. Add the bean puree, pancetta or prosciutto and the beurre blanc and stir. Season carefully.
Lastly, throw in the remaining beans and stir. Serve with summer savory or thyme and grated parmesan.
You either love ’em or loathe ’em. Fortunately some of us really do love them.
Broad beans are best eaten when they’re small and succulent. If you’re faced with some mealy monsters, boil or steam them as normal then “double pod” them by slipping the skins off the cooked beans. Fiddly but worth it.
My favourite ways with broad beans are short and simple. Cookery writer Nigel Slater offers a number of unfussy suggestions suitable for both meat-eaters and vegetarians. These come from his books The 30-Minute Cook and Real Fast Food.
1. Broad beans with bacon
Serves 2 as a main dish
Preparation: 10 minutes
Cooking: 15 minutes
450g shelled broad beans
1 tbsp olive oil
100g bacon, diced
freshly ground black pepper
A dish to eat with a bottle of beer. Drop the beans into a pan of boiling salted water and blanch for no more than 10 minutes. Warm the olive oil in a frying pan and fry the diced bacon until it starts to crisp at the edges. Drain the broad beans and add them to the bacon with a light grinding of pepper. Stir well and then cover with a lid. Cook for 5 minutes until the beans are absolutely tender.
2. Broad bean, bacon and Feta salad
The saltiness of the bacon and Feta cheese is toned down by the mealy broad beans. Cook the shelled beans in salted water till tender, about 10 minutes, and then drain and toss them with hot, crisp grilled bacon and roughly chopped and crumbled Feta cheese. Good with a beer.
3. Broad beans and goat’s cheese
Broad beans and goat’s cheese are an extraordinarily good combination. It was Claudia Roden who first brought them to my attention in her book, The Food of Italy. Ms Roden adds the shelled beans to chopped onion fried in olive oil, then simmers the two with water until very tender, drains them and serves them with cheese warmed under the grill.
I have also cooked the beans in boiling water till tender, drained and placed them in a shallow gratin dish. Then I covered them thoroughly with slices of cheese cut from a goat’s log and popped them under the grill until the cheese had just melted. Eaten with crisp French bread it made a delightful lunch.
This time Nigel suggests a bottle of cold, dry white wine. I’m with him on that one.
As this week’s boxes contained the produce from the Camel CSA’s two rows of broad beans which were picked clean this morning, it’s perhaps the last chance for a broad bean recipe. This is from Sarah Raven’s Garden Cookbook. She recommends using tagliolini or fine spaghetti. Slightly fiddly recipe but the result is very tasty.
Serves 4
Preparation: 10 minutes
Cooking: 15 minutes
Ingredients
250g broad beans, shelled weight
350g tagliolini or fine spaghetti
75g fried pancetta or prosciutto
2 tbsp finely chopped summer savory or thyme, to serve
grated parmesan cheese, to serve
For the beurre blanc:
4 tbsp white wine
4 tbsp white wine vinegar
1 heaped tbsp finely chopped shallots
salt and black pepper
175g unsalted butter, cold and diced
Method
To make the beurre blanc, reduce the wine, vinegar, shallots, salt and pepper in a small saucepan until you have only a tablespoon of liquid left. Whisk in the cold butter bit by bit over a very low heat or using a bain-marie, until thick and creamy. Season. Keep it warm in a vacuum flask or bain marie.
Bring a pan of water to the boil. Cook the beans in the water for 4 minutes. Remove them, reserving some of the cooking liquid, and cool them quickly in a sieve under cold running water.
Pop some of the bright green beans out of their skin by pinching them with your thumb and forefinger; this adds a wonderful colour. Discard the skins and puree half the beans with a tablespoon of the cooking water.
Cook the pasta in salted boiling water until just al dente, leaving a tablespoon or two of cooking liquid in the pan. Add the bean puree, pancetta or prosciutto and the beurre blanc, and stir. Season carefully.
Lastly throw in the remaining beans and stir. Serve with summer savory or thyme and grated parmesan.
The first of Camel Community Agriculture’s weekly recipes celebrates our first-ever veg boxes.
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 10 minutes
Serves: 4
Ingredients
125 g (4 oz) chopped onion
1 clove garlic, chopped
60 g (2 oz) butter
0.5 kg (1 lb) shelled broad beans
2-3 good quality bean pods
chopped fresh sage or parsley
salt, pepper, sugar
6 tablespoons double cream
lemon juice, chopped green onion stalk or chives
Method
Soften the onion and garlic in butter without letting them colour. Add the beans, a litre (1.75 pints) water, the pods and a few sprigs of the herb you choose. When the beans are cooked (approx 10 mins), sieve or blend the soup. Reheat, adding more liquid if necessary to dilute. Season to taste, with a pinch of sugar. Add a little more chopped herb, the cream, the onion stalks and a few drops of lemon juice to bring out the flavour.
Notes
This soup recipe taken from Jane Grigson’s Vegetable Book is simple, quick and good. Jane Baxter, the resident chef at Riverford Organic Vegetables’ Field Kitchen, has adapted it into Broad bean soup for children who hate broad beans! She discards the pods before blending the soup. I agree with her that it is essential not to skimp on the cream.
If you don’t like to use cream and butter for economic or health reasons, try this Vegetarian Society “cordon vert” recipe for Fresh broad bean and mint soup. There’s also a delicious-sounding recipe for Broad bean pate.
Danny, one of our core group members, recommends Chorizo and broad bean salad. Danny says:
“I tried this absolutely delicious broad bean salad. My kids loved it as well!!!
Simply fry an onion, add the sliced chorizo and put the podded broad beans in at the end. I topped it with fresh parsley and some parmesan. YUM!
I did it again with bacon instead of chorizo…..equally yummy!!”
For tips on how to cook, store and freeze broad beans have a look at the useful eat the seasons website.
Click here to see all the recipes that Camel CSA members have recommended so far.
