Tips on How to Prepare Fava Beans

Nutrition Facts

A cup of cooked fava beans has only 80 calories. Fava beans are rich in protein, iron, fiber, potassium and the A and C vitamins, not to mention a modest quantity of B vitamins.

Fava beans, however, are well-known for their dopamine content. Also known as L-dopa, dopamine is a type of amino acid, which is responsible for a healthy brain and is instrumental in the preservation of a good memory, high level of energy and also sex drive which deteriorates with age.

Selection

Choose fresh fava beans with firm pods without blemishes. Go for pods that are plump, with a shiny, bright green look. Check to see if the stem ends are moist. If they are, then it’s an indication that they have been recently harvested.

Choose the heavier variety that gives an indication of healthy beans that are well-rounded inside. If you desire your fava beans to be sweet, then you should go for ones with flatter pods.

If you aren’t going to cook fava beans right away, then you should store them in a plastic bag and keep them in the refrigerator in the portion which helps keep food crisp. To ensure freshness, fava beans could be refrigerated from about five to seven days.

As far as possible, choose fava beans of the organic variety. This variety would do your health a favor as they are grown in soil which is free of chemical-based fertilizers and harmful pesticides. Apart from the health benefit, organic fava beans taste better, too.

How to Prepare Fava Beans

The beans are the highlight of fava beans, So, you would want to remove the beans from the pods before cooking them. To do that, it’s necessary to remove the skin. The only instance you won’t want to remove the bitter skin is if you want to stew the fava beans in a pot.

So, how do you go about peeling fava beans? You would first want to cut off the tips and press firmly in the seams. Once you have extracted the beans, you would want to immerse them in boiling water. You could then give them a quick boil of not more than 30 seconds. If you boil them longer, then you would end up with mushy fava beans, which would not be your idea of enjoying them.

Once the beans are done, drain them free of water and drop them into ice water. Once they are cooled, you could peel the skin with your fingers. You must do this carefully. Otherwise, you would risk breaking the beans. If you find it difficult to work with your fingers, then you can use a vegetable peeler.

Once the skin is removed, you’ll be ready to cook the fava beans. You can find numerous fava bean recipes over the Internet. One healthy recipe you may want to try out is fava beans with garlic, recommended by the Mayo clinic.

References

https://www.efn.org/~sundance/FavaBean.html -Sundance Natural Foods - nutrition facts of fava beans

https://www.fruitsandveggiesmorematters.org/?page_id=11589 – selection and storage of fava beans