Posted by Loulou on May 24, 2013 | 4 comments

I was watching mama shell fava beans the other day, and as she popped those little succulent morsels out of their heavy encasements, she managed to send one or two my way like pop-gun corks, scaring the bejesus out of me in the process.

But fava beans are really, really worth the shelling, eaten with a little pecorino, as you may have observed in a previous blog (in which the delicious crumbly, salty cheese was left out unguarded a little too long and guess who had the last lick?

The culinary world is divided evidently into fava lovers who peel and fava lovers who don’t, which I find appealing, haha. It is sort of like kitties who kibble and kitties who don’t—I happen to like wet food, but that’s another story.

As for fava beans, give me the right-off-the-vine bean, shelled and steamed in a little salted water and then tossed with sautéed fresh sage leaves, garlic and lemon. Squisito, as they say in Roma, which means really good-tasting, like my fish gelée in the morning.

Or, what mama did with fave for a special dish when a well-known Japanese chef, Katsu, came to dinner—she served a nice little green mountain of  “wasabi” with her seared tuna steaks, and it really looked like mustard root paste and Katsu was very wary at first, wanting to be polite but thinking she  was out of her mind to put so much on the plate, and then he realized that mama had made a purée of fava beans shaped like that green stuff that comes with sashimi or sushi and he was tickled pink. Or green, in this case.

But mama succumbed to curiosity and because there were so many plants in the garden, she put a huge bowl of shelled beans in boiling salted water for 3 minutes and then plunged them into ice water and the skins slid off easily, like those yellow lupini you find in Italy everywhere. I, personally, like the peeled ones, cooked and mashed up in wasabi manner and mama puts a few drops of olive oil on mine to make my fur gleam. I am just one sleek, shining kitty after that, which is why I help mama pick beans off those long stalks, jumping around in the bed trying to knock the beans off.

Uh, oh, three stalks just tupped right over and broke, all by themselves…I’m outta here….