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[muckefuck]

Last night, I took advantage of the cooler weather to have monshu over for quesadillas. At least, it was cooler when I issued the invitation; by the time he arrived, it had gotten warm and sticky again and hot food cooked at home seemed less of a genius idea.

But what else could I do? I tend to have so few ingredients on hand that flexibility is out of the question. That morning, I couldn't even scrounge anything for breakfast; I ended up finishing up a package of crackers to give me the energy to go out and shop.

For the first time ever, I saw fresh favas for sale. I love reading my Catalan cookbook but, unfortunately, many of the "basic" ingredients it calls for are unfindable. I've been wanting to make the canelons recipe for years, but even my half-Italian SIL wasn't sure where to find fresh pasta sheets around here.

I still can't make my favourite favas dish, faves a la catalana, because there's no place to buy the botifarra, but there's a recipe for amanida de faves amb menta that looks quite tasty.

Of course, before I can make that, I have to figure out how to cook the favas properly. Worried I wouldn't get to them before they want bad, I plucked the beans from the 3/4 lbs. I bought at Delray Foods and ended up with a small handful, which I blanched, shelled, and stuck in the freezer.

Sometime soon, I'll pull them out and complete the cooking. The huge discrepancy in the relative size of the beans (the smallest one is lima-bean size, the largest as big as the head of a shitake mushroom) causes me concern about even doneness, though.

The quesadillas came out a bit better than last time, I think. monshu thought the whole wheat tortillas somewhat overwhelmed the ingredients, but I thought my idea of making a sofregit of cebollitas and scallion whites and cooking it down with salsa ranchera and cubed pork to make a savoury filling worked rather well.

Comments

Favas

[foodpoisoningsf.livejournal.com]

Favas are really great the first week of summer, but after that the joy of prepping them pales... it really is a rural activity, or one for nona to pass the time.

Is this your first time? It sounds like you did not remove the spongy hull that surrounds the actual bean.

Check out this

Re: Favas

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Woo-hoo! Not only botifarres, but also fuets and sobrassada! I could only be happier if they had pamplona as well! Grazie, bello!

Yes, these were my first favas. I told monshu that if I ever need to do a big recipe, I'm definitely going to hold a kaffeeklatsch so all the yiayias and nonne can come over and help me.

I get confused over what "shelling" means. Here, I used it to mean removing the spongy hull, but I suspect for others it means taking the beans out of the pods. (And then there are dialects where it means "peel", as in "shelling taters".)

[parisgreen.livejournal.com]

What I usually do with favas is saute and puree them, but that probably doesn't work with the recipes you're wanting to do. Still, fava puree is easy and works well for lots of things: on toast (with a little parmesan on top if you want), in risotto, as a side dish, etc. And when you cook them that way, it doesn't matter about the size differences. I got instructions for this from the Chez Panisse Vegetables cookbook, but the short version is that you saute them with plenty of olive oil (adding water as you cook if necessary to keep them from sticking), plus a sprig of rosemary and a couple of garlic cloves. Then you puree them in the food processor (you can mash them also) with even more olive oil and a little lemon juice. The recipe says to remove the rosemary and garlic, but I usually just pull out the really twiggy bit of the rosemary and puree the rest.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Another enticing recipe in that book is cream of fava soup, which would be a snap with the new immersion blender my mom bought me. It's basically like what you've given here, only with cream!

[parisgreen.livejournal.com]

Everything's better with cream!

[bunj.livejournal.com]

...by the time he arrived, it had gotten warm and sticky again and hot food cooked at home seemed less of a genius idea.

We've been eating a lot of gazpacho lately. It does mean a special trip to get the ingredients, but it keeps for a week or so.

[prilicla.livejournal.com]

Go back to Russia!