Fava Bean with Tahini Salsa

Now for something different! I am intrigued at the use of both olive oil and butter to stir-fry aromatics for mixing with beans. 

Fava or Broad Beans with Tahini Salsa
by Laila al Khaja, "With a Pinch of Spice"

For the tahini salsa:
3/4 C tahini
2 lemons, juiced
1/4 water
1 tbsp yogurt
salt
pepper

For the beans:
500 g broad beans (fava beans), frozen
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp butter
3 cloves garlic, finely mashed
1 cup coriander (cilantro)/parsley
salt
pepper
1 tbsp coriander leaves (cilantro) or parsley, roughly chopped, for garnish

For the tahini salsa, combine the tahini with lemon juice. Add the water & yogurt, mixing well to get a liquid-like consistency. Season to taste.
*I feel 3/4 of a cup of tahini is too much for a liquid consistency. Start with 1/4 cup, adding more to taste. And consider using an immersion blender.

So the recipe calls for frozen broad beans, or fava beans, which I could not find in my basic stores. So I bought dried fava beans and cooked them. As you’ll see in this video, they don’t look too good. Nor did they taste good. I think they were an old batch. Some beans were falling apart while others still weren’t cooked through. So if you cant find frozen or fresh fava beans, try another bean, maybe edamame? If you use that, let me know! I’d really like to find a good bean for this because the recipe has lots of potential!

If you can find frozen beans, wash them and boil in salted water for 5 minutes. Drain, peel off the skins, and set aside.

The recipe calls for finely mashed garlic, so I’m going to mash with a microplane. You can also finely chop your garlic.

Heat butter and olive oil in a large, non-stick pan and stir-fry the garlic for 2 minutes. When you stir-fry, you’re using higher heat than normal and also keeping things moving. So I’ve heated my pan to just above medium heat and I’m going to constantly stir the garlic.

Now we’ll add chopped cilantro or parsley and stir-fry it. I’m using parsley that I have blended with olive oil that I keep in my fridge for things like this, so I don’t have to chop fresh herbs every other recipe.

And now we’ll add in the beans and cook for 2 more minutes. Again, I’m stirring constantly because it’s high heat and I want the beans to be completely covered in our garlicky, herby, buttery, goodness.

And we’re done! You can serve this warm, with some salt and pepper, topped with the tahini salsa, which you can make as thin or thick as you want, or serve it separately. Again, the flavor here was really good. I liked the herbs and garlic cooked in the olive oil and butter. Just the weird texture of my ugly beans kept me from really enjoying this.