Too Soon for Potatoes?

Just a few days ago it was starting to look like spring around our kitchen garden here in the District of Columbia, about a mile from the White House. I was able to get out and sow spinach and fava bean seeds. And today my seed potatoes are scheduled to be shipped from Maine. But somehow I think planting them may yet be a while off. (It's supposed to hit 60 degrees later in the week.)

Liver with Fava Beans and a Little Chianti

With all the fava beans we've harvested recently, it was impossible not to pay a small homage to Hannibal Lecter. So I made a quick trip to the local Whole Foods and discovered calves liver is quite the bargain: just a bit over $3 for four man-sized portions.



Hey, we may be on to something here. Of course this means I'll be eating liver for the rest of the week. The wife will not go near filtering organs. Fortunately, our friend Tomeika is a liver fan (who knew?) so I was able to share this meal with at least one other human.



Slice a large Vidalia onion into thick rings and saute in extra-virgin olive oil over moderately low heat until deep golden. Remove the onions and raise the heat to medium. Season the liver with salt and pepper and saute in a mix of extra-virgin olive oil and butter until done to your taste (some people like it a little bloody), browning the meat on both sides. Remove the liver and deglaze the pan with about 1/3 cup red wine.



The favas had already been blanched and shelled. I finished cooking them until tender in a skillet with butter. Season with a bit of salt. Serve on a hot plate, pouring some of the glaze over the liver. Pour a glass of Chianti and give a toast to Anthony Hopkins.

Shelling Favas

The fava bean is the original Old Wold bean. Other beans originated in the Americas. Picked when the pods are green and plump, the barely mature beans are sweat and tender, tasting like fresh peas. But getting them from the garden to the dinner plate takes a bit of work.

The fava bean is doubly protected--first in a very large pod with a pillowy lining, then inside a fairly tough casing.

To extract the bean from the casing, blanch the beans in a large pot of boiling water for 30 seconds. Transfer the beans to a bowl of cold water to arrest the cooking process. This can be done in batches. Allow the water to come back to a boil before proceeding with the next batch.

On one end of the casing you'll notice a very dark indent. This represents the fava's belly button.

The other end is smooth, with an airfoil shape.

To open the casing, use the tip of a paring knife to make a crescent-shaped incision along the smooth end.

Gently squeeze between thumb and forefinger at the opposite end. The bean should slide out. Older beans are more difficult to remove--another reason to pick the favas at their peak, when the pods are plump and bright green. A dull or browning pod indicates advanced age.

Free of its casing, the fava is ready to finish cooking any way you'd like.




This bowlful of blanched and shelled favas represents our entire harvest from 50 plants. I'm thinking lightly sauteed with onion and a little butter. Or maybe smeared on bruschetta with pecorino cheese....

Favas

It seemed that for the longest time we were admiring the flowers on our fava plants. Then one day we looked and where the flowers had been, pods were growing. Now the pods are swelling and seem to be getting longer every day. They are already the size of overstuffed green beans--about five inches long--but they aren't even close to harvesting. No, these pods will get much, much bigger before they are through.

I am totally enamored of our favas. They don't get much of a mention in the vegetable literature, but they are quite a plant. The growth is incredibly vigorous, producing plants upwards of 36 inches tall with a profusion of pointy, grayish-green leaves. The mature plants have a pleasingly complex, architectural quality that makes them a standout in the garden.

Favas don't like the heat. I planted an entire seed pack--50 seeds--in a small patch on March 4. I suppose I could have planted them earlier. I worry that as temperatures climb into the 80s here in the District of Columbia the plants will poop out on me. But so far they are soldiering on with no sign of stress or disease. And the production of fruit is impressive--there are pods everywhere you look.

This is what the baby favas look like this morning. They have a pillowy nest inside their pods. As they mature, they will develop a tough casing around the fruit. At this stage, they can be eaten, but I don't recommend it. The little ones don't have the sweetness of mature favas and leave and astringent bitterness on the tongue.

Favas are so easy to grow and so productive. If you have trouble growing peas in our area, try favas.

Kids Make Fava & Pea Salad with Roasted Garlic Vinaigrette

Sometimes I am completely surprised by what the kids in my "food appreciation" classes find delicious. I wasn't sure at all about this particular dish--a salad of fava beans, peas and asparagus--because it is just so darn green. In addition, I was betting the kids had never heard of fava beans and might very well reject them, even though they are among my favorite foods.

In fact, there were several different elements in this lesson competing for attention. First was some background on favas, since they are the original old world bean, unlike virtually every other bean in the world, which traces its lineage back to the Americas. There is also the strange little casing from which the fava must be liberated before it can be consumed.

We also had asparagus spears that needed to be cut in a decorative fashion for our salad. And then came the matter of a vinaigrette that starts with roasted garlic. For this I introduced the kids to parchment paper, an easily overlooked but extremely handy kitchen supply that gives rise to its own cooking technique: oven steaming. I showed the kids how to slice the top off a whole head of garlic, drizzle it with olive oil, then wrap it in parchment paper, and again in aluminum foil for roasting in the oven.


I've always purchased my favas frozen at the local Latin store. The tender, sweet bean is encased in a tough shell. Defrost the beans in a pot of boiling water, drain and chill in cold water. If you make a slit at one end of the shell with a paring knife, the bean slides right out. One of the students preferred prying the shell open with his fingers. To each his own.

I now find shelled favas in the frozen section of the local Whole Foods. This eliminates a lot of work. For the salad, we found that 1 1/2 cups each (about 8 ounces) of favas and frozen peas, plus 1 pound of fresh asparagus trimmed and cut on an angle into 1/2-inch pieces, then cooked until tender, made enough for at least a dozen snack-size portions. Cut this recipe in half to make four adult-sized dinner portions.

To defrost the favas and peas, we simply combined them in a bowl and covered them with hot water for a minute or two.

Roast the garlic in its parchment-foil packet ahead of time in a 350-degree oven for one hour, then give it a chance to cool. When it comes time to make the vinaigrette, squeeze the garlic like toothpaste out of its paper skin into a mixing bowl. Kids love the smell of roasted garlic, but they weren't quite sure what to make of the squishy, caramelized puree that emerged.

"Ew!" they exclaimed. "It looks like poop!"

When roasted like this, garlic is completely transformed--it loses all its agressive tendencies and becomes very mild, even sweet.

Use a whisk to blend 1 1/2 tablespoons red wine vinegar and a drop or two of extra-virgin olive oil into the garlic puree. When the oil is completely incorporated, mix in another 1/3 cup. Season with salt to taste. At this point, I would normally add about 1/2 cup toasted walnuts, coarsely chopped. But we don't do nuts at school because of allergies. One alternative might be the toasted roasted soy beans you sometimes find in the bulk section. One of the students suggested water chestnuts to give the salad a little crunch.

Toss the salad with vinaigrette, chopped parsley, some crumbled Feta cheese and serve at room temperature. The kids gave this dish a big thumbs-up. It would make an excellent side for a spring picnic.

Bruschetta with Favas and Peas

The fava beans are coming on strong in the garden but weeks away from producing anything edible. So why am I writing about fava beans and peas?

Earlier in the year, we got an unexpected request from the D.C. Historical Society to help put together a garden-related speaking program. Apparently the folks at the historical society had first contact the U.S. Botanical Garden, and were referred to D.C. Urban Gardeners, a public-spirited group where I am one of the organizers.

It was pretty short notice. They wanted speakers on a monthly basis starting in April. So I volunteered to be first up with a Powerpoint presentation that unveils some of the delicious foods that can be created out of an urban garden. We're calling it, Spring Cuisine from an Urban Kitchen Garden.

Think asparagus, rhubarb, lettuces, greens, radishes, strawberries. In fact, there is quite a lot to choose from when you think about it. And even if you don't have a large garden area, you can easily grow salads and other edibles in containers.

So here I am, making all kinds of recipes and photographing them as quickly as I can with my little Canon Elph camera.

Favas are an interesting case. They are the original "Old World" bean, sometimes referred to as "broad bean." Fresh, the bean itself is incredibly tender, green and flavorful. But getting to it can be a challenge. Besides being enclosed in a fairly massive pod that you sometimes see at the Whole Foods in spring, the bean is hidden away in a rubbery casing that is inedible when mature.


I haven't seen any fresh favas yet. But a decent substitute are the frozen ones sold in Latin markets. Drop the beans into boiling water and cook just a minute or two, or until you can open the casing with the tip of a pairing knife. Give a little squeeze at the uncut end and the bean will pop right out.


To make this bruschetta, I first grill thick slices of a rustic bread. Mix the cooked favas and some cooked peas (fresh or frozen) in a bowl with some chopped fresh mint and season with lemon juice, salt and extra-virgin olive oil. Mash the beans with the back of a spoon or a potato masher. The beans must be flattened or they'll roll right off the bread.

Now give the grilled bread a good rub with a peeled clove of garlic. Smoother it with the mashed beans, drizzle some more olive oil and top it off with a big grating of Pecorino cheese.

We like to serve these bruschetta with cocktails when friends come for dinner. They're easy, and nothing says spring better than favas and peas.

Planting Favas

I'm usually at least a month behind in my planting. It doesn't matter much. The District of Columbia has a long growing season. But I'm feeling especially spry this year, having finally organized my seed collection into something recognizable. I also worked up a planting list. At a glance, I can see that I could have been planting my spinach a month ago and that carrot seeds could have gone in the ground two weeks back.

It's also time to be planting peas and fava beans. The fava seeds look just like the dried fava beans you see at the Middle Eastern grocery. Did you know that most beans--even the ones that sound French or Italian--have their origins in the New World? Fava, or broad bean, is the original Old World bean. We love favas in a light braise with peas, or spread over bruschetta with Pecorino cheese.

First step is to read the seed packet and perhaps the seed catalogue for specific planting information about favas. These indicate that favas need about 75 days to fully mature and really hate heat. Planting them now should mean we'll be harvesting favas around the middle of May, just about the time the weather is heating up.

Seeds normally are planted to a depth of three times the width of the seed. That means a hole about 1 1/2 inches deep for these large fava seeds. There's a name for the tool used to make the hole. It's called a dibble. I don't own a formal dibble. I use the handle of a screw driver. It's not quite as elegant, and compacts the soil at the bottom of the hole more than I probably should . But it seems to work.

The fava seeds should be planted four inches to six inches apart, according to my seed packet. That gives the individual plants enough room to grow. I don't plant in rows, but in squares. And I plant seeds closer together rather than farther apart. My hope is that the plants will be self-mulching. In other words, the foliage will be so dense it will suppress weeds and help retain moisture in the soil, eliminating the need to spread straw or leaves or some other mulching material. That's the hope, anyway.

Before I begin planting, I go around the area with my forked spade, plunging it deep into the soil and rocking gently back and forth to loosen the sub-soil. I then dust the area with a thin layer of compost (we make lots of compost around here) and work that into the soil with my stirrup hoe. The final step before putting seeds in the ground is to get down on all fours and break up any clods with my hands. This is my favorite part of planting, actually running the soil through my hands, smelling it, seeing how applications of compost over the years have worked their magic, injecting life into my garden beds. While I'm down there, I also remove any weeds and stones I find.

To remember exactly where I have planted my favas, I mark the area with these wooden steaks. That would be on the left, where I planted 50 seeds in all, or the entire contents of my seed packet. The area on the right still needs to be planted. I'll come back later with onion sets or carrots or something else that will appreciate this rich, loose soil.