A detour to broad beans and Nigel
- 2 hours ago
- 5 min read
"Grey food tends not to win a child over." Nigel Slater
This was going to be a blog called 'You don't need a recipe' which partly came from thoughts gained from the Guardian Feast newsletter, from the next website on my list, and also a look at the next yellow sticker pointing out of Nigel's book Tender Volume 1.
All three very tempting in themselves and also as a kind of amalgamation of ideas about recipes.
However, I soon realised that that was too big a task and decided to concentrate on Nigel's broad beans today. It seemed easier.
The picture is of a broad bean flower - which he describes as 'like butterflies clinging to a stick which finally seduced me.'
Finally seduced me?
Well - a bit like me he did not like broad beans as a child -
"As a child I wouldn't eat the bean American cooks call the fava, and yet for all its faults - mealy texture, musty smell, papery skins - I knew that the broad bean was essentially a beneficial thing. I wanted to like them."
A feeling that reverberated with me somewhat. I did eat them, but I didn't really like them, but yes, I felt that I should like them - particularly now when they have become so trendy - and the name fava has returned to add to the trendiness. Besides it was a bit of a fiddle to get those leathery skins off them - although Nigel has this to say on that topic:
"Popping them out of their parchment-like skins after cooking takes but a minute and is actually a rather agreeable task. Unless, of course, you are in a hurry."
And now that I think about that task we were given as children, it was rather fun to see the green beans pop out of those grey skins. Besides these days, unless you grow them yourself - perhaps I should try - you are rather more likely to buy them frozen and already podded. Indeed I have a bag in my freezer waiting for me to try one day. So far I have not been brave enough, because David professes not to like them and so I have never cooked them.
Nigel was converted - not by the beans themselves initially - but by the flowers:
"I only truly appreciated broad beans once I had seen them growing. The flowers, pure white, black and white, or the deep crimson-pink of an archbishop's robe, have a scent that wafts lightly on the air. The smell takes you by surprise on a cold spring day, like a sudden blast of winter jasmine, hitting you when you least expect it."
Well they are lovely. All bean flowers are in fact. I remember loving the scarlet flowers of runner beans - which we don't get here.
But the beans themselves are indeed not enticing - well the ones you will buy - because these are not the tiny ones you can apparently eat raw - pod and all - or the slightly larger green ones, which are probably the ones you get in those frozen bags. Although I think you probably have to either soak or blanch them before you can remove the skins.
No - the ones I remember looked like this. Grey - and those skins were really quite thick. Did we even have to eat the skins as well? Anyway I wasn't a huge fan, although not completely repulsed.
The broad bean - now increasingly called the fava bean because of the Americans and those from the Middle-East - is rather more trendy although still not usually found in the supermarket in other than frozen form. I'm not even sure you can get them dried. And yet it's the only bean that is native to the old world. All other beans come from the Americas.
However, there are countless new ways of eating broad beans, as well as recipes from way back such as Habas a la Catalana - delicious. (UK) which Nigels describes, and in the process gave me the title of the post I was going to write - and still will:
"The Catalans have wonderful bean recipes, including one where the beans are cooked in earthenware with pork fat, onion, parsley, oregano, rosemary and olive oil and served with blood sausage. You don't need a recipe - just pile the ingredients in, cover with a little stock and a lid and leave to cook in a low oven for a couple of hours."
But back to Nigel and also 'you don't need a recipe' because in Tender volume 1 he has a selection of recipes, most of which are hardly a recipe - for example: Green beans, cool white cheese and hot radishes/Küchenlatein; The simplicity of broad beans and Spanish ham/ Küchenlatein; Broad beans, herbs, bacon and its fat and the slightly more complicated Creamed beans with mint - and perhaps to demonstrate the no recipe thing - the recipe online uses dill not mint.
You don't have to be a cook to produce some of these - just buy some ham or salami for example - it doesn't have to be hugely expensive Spanish ham as here - and quickly cook those frozen broad beans in the microwave. Serve with some good bread and voilà - dinner. A real 'girl dinner'.
I will not detour yet again into the whole wide world of recipes for broad beans which range from the immensely simple like the above; through dips and fritters to long slow stews. I also will not pursue the 'you don't need a recipe' thing either because that's a whole other post.
However, I will say that it's one of the things I like about Nigel Slater - the simplicity of most of his recipes - although let me be honest - Nigel sometimes entices with his words but disappoints with the end result on your plate. Not often however. Just sometimes. And there's always room for improvement.
The other thing about his recipes are that they are a moveable feast. He will present a recipe and then it will pop up somewhere else, ever so slightly altered, and even as he presents a recipe he will ponder on how else you could serve it or vary it - as for example at the end of his introduction to the creamed beans:
"I often serve the beans as a side dish with cream and perhaps a stirring of parsley. A dish as soporific as it is beautiful. Some poached gammon would be nice here, as might a piece of lightly cooked white fish. Though I would be more than satisfied with some triangles of hot brown toast."
I could actually try a few of those frozen broad beans tonight. I've got to do something with sausages. I was going to make Neil Perry's pork ragù but when I looked at the defrosted pork I decided it had probably gone off so I had to throw it away. Things disappear and are forgotten in my freezer. The broad beans however have not been there for long, and I am now doing something with sausages. A braise with tomatoes, broad beans and corn? Corn is the bargain of the moment. I must think on that.
YEARS GONE BY
May 2 - a new month. Always spring to me.
2024 - Amuse-bouches
2023 - Fashionable foraging
2022 - How hard can it be?
2021 - Missing
2020 - Missing
Broad Beans, hmmmmm. Perhaps not for me. Runner beans, baked beans vertainly. Broad? 🤣