I’d never tasted young broad beans before!
These were the first pods off our backyard plants, and the beans were so fresh and tender that they didn’t need double peeling…
I had beans on toast for lunch, made to this fabulously simple Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall recipe.
The baby broad beans were blanched briefly (oh, how I love alliteration), then panfried with pancetta, slices of spanish onion, lemon juice and a little olive oil. It was simply sublime on sourdough.
(If inspired, feel free to cleverly comment with a-little alliteration!)
Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 
Beefy Baby Broad Beans Bursting Bountiful mouthfuls of Bliss!xx
Yes, Yvette, you’re so spot on! :)
I love broad beans. We call them fava beans here. They are hard to find but there’s a few weeks in the summer when they pop up in the farmer’s market.
The good old HF-W techniques, eh?
Clear pics too.
Maz, they’ve been really very easy to grow! A kind of plant and ignore vegetable.. :)
Peter, thank you! Yes, we’re big HF-W fans, and so many of his recipes are just so simple.
The bountiful bouquet of baby broad beans, punched and plumped with plentiful pancetta and superbly sauteed with sleek Spanish onions, makes my mouth lonesome for it’s loveliness.
(Or – I wish I had some- that sure looks good!)
Hi Heidi, wonderful words, wish we could consume broad beans together! Hahaha…
Too tired for alliteration but your beans look magnifique!
Merci, Anna! :)
Beautiful baby broad beans positioned perfectly with pancetta.
A delectable dish desired by many.
Beautiful, Brydie! Thanks for the thought! :)
Broad Beans are on my O blood type diet so I try to eat them often. Recently we constructed a broad bean and beetroot salad with red rice. I thought the beet juice would make the salad look gross but actually broad beans are slightly hydrophobic and held onto the dressing in drops and the result was not unlike those runner beans which grow naturally speckled with red. The broad beans looked like they’d been born that way. An interesting visual effect.
Lovely little legumes, don’t desire double dealing. Beautiful bounty of benevolence! Perfectly paired with porky pancetta
Hahaha…it’s not a contest, of course, but I do think we have a winner…hehe
These look amazing Celia. I was just visiting Amanda on her site & she was asking for ideas for lovely fresh broad beans…, I’ll be suggesting she visit here, I’d not seen this combination before either & there really is nothing much nicer than fresh baby broadbeans straight outa the garden huh.
Wow, that looks amazing…sadly I will not be able to taste it, am allergic to them. But I imagine that they’ll be similar to fresh peas from the pod but more earthy taste to them?
Gorgeous, Celia, and very timely as I just discussed broad beans here – http://69.89.31.222/~lambsear/?p=1196
So I think you can expect some of my readers checking you out!
And it really is true – bacon (or in this case, pancetta) does improve just about anything!
Hi Celia! At the risk of disapproval from my fellow foodies, I too love fresh, young broad beans, but as I don’t always get around to buying them in season I often have a bag of frozen in my freezer and I have to say (though not a patch on freshly picked) they are very creamy, yummy and …..convenient….. It’s the frozen that converted me to fresh! They’re great in curries and pasties and stews….
We grew broad beans one season but they so overran everything else that I haven’t tried again – these look so lovely though, it makes me want to try again. Yummy sounding dish!
Brilliantly balanced and blanched baby broad beans on bread – brilliant!
Truly a fabulous looking lunch!
:-) Mandy
Frances, that sounds like a wonderful combination, thank you!
Anna and Amanda, thank you – I missed that post on Amanda’s blog (I don’t always pick up on the In the Box posts). Will go check it out now.. :)
Soy, raw they’re a little bitter, but cooked they’re very mellow and almost nutty! I’m sorry to hear you’re allergic!
Irith – what a beautiful name you have, I have a neighbour named Irith, and she will be thrilled to hear that someone else shares her name! I’ve never tried the frozen broadbeans, but it’s nice to know that we can freeze them if there’s a surplus – thank you!
Sarah, I’m not sure we’re going to have enough for me – we planted them quite late. Next year I want to plant more beans and less spinach – love spinach, but love beans more. I love this process of growing, tasting and refining what we want in the garden.
Mandy, magnificent mix of worthy words! :)
There was a young lady called Celia
Who decided she’d rather not peelia
Pound of broad beans
And missed the great greens
That such a peeling would revealia.
J Cosmo, a poet of note
A limerick for me, he wrote
On broad beans no less
And penned with finesse
I’m grateful, but don’t wish to gloat!
:)
My broads beans are pushing about an inch long. That’s the pod, not the bean. A little impatient waiting to go!
Lee, you won’t need to wait long in this weather! I think ours went from an inch to six inches in a couple of weeks!
Brian’s favourite vegetable of all time but not mine, though they are nicer without the skins on. We always seem to get blackfly all over them and then we get the ladybirds all over the blackfly. And so on….
They form a nice part of a baby green vegetable risotto, when you have a few of these and a few peas and a few spring onions and not quite enough of anything but lots of tender young veggies.
Great alliteration and limericks – well done the Celia readers :)
Oooh they must be gorgeous if you didn’t have to double peel them! :D I’m afraid it’s too early for me to even attempt any alliteration right now but I love your little bit! :D
Sorry, I couldn’t come up with any alliteration worth sharing but those broad beans look enticing :) In fact, I just love your garden (and chooks).
Have a lovely weekend, Celia.
Jo, that’s a wonderful idea! We have fresh peas almost ready to pick.. :)
Lorraine, woman, get some sleep! ;-)
Wink, how nice to see you! Hope all is well, thanks for stopping by. I keep checking every day on your beautiful blog.. :)
Not sure I can cope with the alliteration, especially at this time of night, but your beans look wonderful and so glad they worked for you.
Thanks Choc! Hope the sore throat is on the mend!
Thanks for this post – helped me decide what to do with the first of our broad beans today. If the link works you can see the slightly modified (and not so pretty version) here: http://on.fb.me/uUy8Dw