Fava Beans and Garlic Scapes
Garlic scapes are a rare delicacy. Hard to find unless you grow your own hardneck garlic. The scapes are the flower stalk produced by garlic in late spring. We cut or snap off the scapes to focus growth into the garlic bulb. Those trimmings are a tasty treat with a nice mild garlic flavor. Harvest them just when they start making their curli-Q.
When harvested young, the scapes will still be tender. Waiting until they get larger and they will be tough and fibrous. You can eat them raw, like green onions, with that fresh garlic “bite” to them. We do chop some and put them into salads to add a little zest.
Fava, or broad beans (baghala باقلا, in Persian), are another vegetable you won’t often see in the produce department, at least here in the US. We grow fava beans primarily as a soil building cover crop with edible beans as a nice bonus. The greens are also edible, see our recipe for fava greens.
The beans take a bit of effort to get ready, since they need to be shelled from their pods, then the tough skins of the beans need to be removed. The result is nice tender tasty beans.
We decided to combine these two tasty treats in one easy dish with a quick sauté and a delicious result.
Ingredients
- 2 cups shelled and peeled fava beans
- 3/4 cup chopped garlic scapes
- 1 teaspoon olive oil
- 2 teaspoons dried dill weed
- Dash salt to taste
- Black pepper to taste
Process
Shell and peel fava beans
Remove the fava beans from the pods. The pods break open fairly easily. A little twist will help pop the beans out. Much like removing peas from their pods.
The beans have a very tough leathery skin that needs to be removed. Blanching the beans in boiling water for 2-3 minutes then transferring to cold water will help loosen up the skins. You may be able to pop the beans out of their skins with a little squeeze. Using a paring knife to knick the skin on one end helps them pop quicker. With a little practice, you’ll get a good technique! Then you’ll have a nice batch of tender dark green beans.
From a quantity standpoint, going from the full pods to beans loses about half the weight. Then going from bean to skinned beans is another loss of about half. So starting with 2 pounds of fresh pods will yield a bit over 1/2 pound of beans. That is approximately what we used in this recipe.
The photo below shows the stages going from left to right with full pods, shelled beans, blanched beans, and finally beans on the bottom with empty skins above.
Trim and chop garlic scapes
Garlic scapes are simpler to prepare. The tips of the scapes get a bit tough, so we chop off the tips from just below the flowering part.
A quick sauté
Once the fava beans are shelled and peeled as described above, they are ready to cook.
Trim the tough tops off the garlic scapes, cutting them just below the developing flower bud. Then chop into bite sized pieces, about 1/2 inch to 1 inch long (1-2 cm).
Heat a sauté pan on medium heat, add the olive oil then peeled fava beans and chopped garlic scapes. Briefly stir, add dill weed and sauté about 3 minutes until everything is hot. Add salt and pepper as desired.
Serve and eat right away. The garlic scapes will still have a little crunch and the fava beans will be al dente. Cooking much longer and the garlic scapes will start to lose some of their flavor.
Enjoy!
Zanganeh Garden 