My dad was a huge fan of broad beans! He really loved them and since my mom adored my dad, we had broad beans on a regular basis. A severe case of true love because my mom did not like broad beans at all. Nor did I!! I remember all to well the long hours spent at the dining table behind my plate of broad beans which I seemed unable to swallow. Everybody would have left the dinner table and I still would be there. Wishing the hated beans would miraculously vanish from my plate while struggling with the injustice of it all. Injustice because my mom also didn’t like broad beans so instead shamelessly prepared herself a salad of some kind. The unfairness of this caused me to suffer from a severe case of ‘broad bean trauma’!

This trauma lasted a decade or two until I tried some ‘Humus with Ful’, a very popular dish in Israel. I really liked it and until then I didn’t have a clue that Ful is actually made of dried fava beans. Back home I searched for dried fava beans and in my favorite supermarket (the Turkish supermarket). They sell all this different kinds of dried fava beans. Small ones, large ones and from different origins. I was told that the ones from Iran were the best. So I bought those and prepared a delicious Spicy ful and the trauma flew right out the window!

The next thing I prepared with broad beans was a broad bean spread. Tthis is prepared with fresh (or canned) broad beans and is so good and addictive that I don’t even recall having a broad bean trauma😜.

And then the other day I was at the same Turkish supermarket where they also sell fresh broad beans (in season). Many times I have been at the verge of buying them but never did because I wasn’t sure if I was up to the task of cleaning them. But if you have a website about vegan food where you advocate to use fresh ingredients as much as possible you cannot take yourself seriously if you’ve never prepared broad beans from scratch. So I took the plunge, bought myself a load of fresh beans (you really need to buy like 2 kilo’s to end up with a few hundred grams of broad beans) and headed home.

When it was almost time for dinner I started to peel my broad beans. It proved to be nothing but the daunting task I had thought it to be. Quick and easy I opened the shells and all these lovely broad beans came rolling out. And I couldn’t help but thinking what all that fuss was about…… I found out soon enough! Because as easy as it was to get them out of their “coat”, to get them out of their “underwear” was something else!

I think it took me about an hour to get this second skin off and in the meantime the kids were bugging me: “how long until dinner is ready?” To make matters worse, from this huge pile of beans there was just a tiny bit left. Totally unrewarding if you ask me, especially if you consider that I have fresh frozen broad beans in my freezer ready for grabs.

Since I am not ready for a new “broad bean trauma” this was my first, but definitely last time I’m afraid. Despite the fact that they were lovely and really fresh, the amount of time put in was not worth it for me.

The dish itself was delicious! I served it with a creamy beetroot risotto with plenty of nutritional yeast for that ‘cheesy’ feel. The bright red and the fresh green were a killing combination on the plate as well as in the mouth. I feel stupid for not taking a picture of that🤨, maybe another time, because there definitely wíll be another time!

This really is a super easy and quick dish (if you forget about the cleaning process). The freshness of the added lemon zest and mint leaves makes it very suitable for a warm Spring/Summer’s day. Obviously it’s a healthy one too!

So go ahead, buy yourself some broad beans, fresh or frozen, that’s entirely up to you. The rest of the acquired ingredients and the preparation method you will find here. Let me know how you got on!