Fava Beans (Bakula)

Fava bean, also known as Broad bean or horse bean is gaining popularity in the States.  In Nepal we call it Bakula.  It was one of the common beans in Nepal when I was growing up.  During my childhood I did not particularly like the smell or taste of this bean.  We cut them, with pods and cooked them with onion, potato, cumin and water.  I would say that the way we used to cook this dish was not very nutritional.  It was watered down and cooked too long even though it was pressure-cooked and served with white rice.  We also roasted the dry beans.  Women and girls loved all kinds of roasted beans.  To roast them you would put them in a hot wok and use a wooden spoon to stir.  Once they start getting darker you would start hearing “pop pop” noise which means the skin on them are splitting open.  When all of them split open they are done and ready to be eaten.  They were pretty hard to chew and your teeth and jaw got a workout, but growing up it sure was a fun and healthy snack.

Since I have been seeing these bean at a local market where I shop, I thought it was time for me to get out of my comfort zone and give them a try again.  So last few times I have been buying 6-7 pods at a time.  The ones that I grew up with were soft so we would eat the beans and the outer pods.  So when I brought these home I was not sure how I was going to cook them since they were huge and pods were tough & thick skinned.

Trial #1

I ended up taking them off the pods and tried quick sautéing them with chopped garlic in butter.  I had a good idea but then I left them in a cast iron pan covered for a little bit too long.  They had lost their green color by the time I got to them.

Trial #2

My second attempt was to steam them on high heat for a few minutes.  When I got them out they still had a really nice fresh green color on them.  So I took them off the pods and tried eating them.  They still did not taste good.  The beans themselves tasted tough.  Then I decided to take a layer of tough skin off these beans and tried the inside beans.  The picture above shows the ones with tough skins and some that have the skins pealed off.  Viola!  I loved them.  Yay!  They were tender and quite tasty.  I just eat them by themselves but you can also have them with a little bit of soy sauce or salt.

So I think fava beans will be one of the vegetables on my list to buy from now on.  These little guys are high in protein and dietary fiber, very low in fat, free of saturated fat and an excellent food source of many nutrients essential for human health, such as vitamins and minerals.

In recent years I have also been hearing a lot about fava bean flour.  Maybe because it is one of the main ingredients in Gluten Free all purpose baking flour.  Bob’s Red Mill makes Gluten-Free Garbanzo Fava Flour.  I have tried making pancakes with this flour.  It is quite heavy and has a distinct smell even when using banana and vanilla.  If you attempt to make pancakes please replace only ¼ portion of the flour with this flour.  You can use Sorghum flour for the rest to create a Gluten Free breakfast.  The key is also to have your eggs separated and then beating the egg whites until fluffy.  This will help pancake to be not too flat and heavy.  Please look for my whole-wheat pancakes and some variation on this recipe that I will be posting soon.

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