Broad Beans - Fūl midammis (ful medames)

 Fūl midammis  -  

Middle Eastern dish using dried fava beans

Ful medames (Mudammas)  is a spiced fava bean “stew” often eaten throughout the Middle East and North Africa. There is evidence of ful in Egypt dating back to the 4^th century and I have read  that the beans were buried in large pots in the ground – mudammas means "buried", hence the name.

Besides being inexpensive and easy to prepare (although a lengthy process if using dried beans) it is a very nutritious and filling dish often eaten for breakfast. It is slow to digest because of its high fibre content, so it releases a steady stream of energy for several hours after consumption, keeping hunger at bay for longer. For this reason it is a popular dish during Ramadan for suhoor,(sohour) the meal served before sunrise and morning prayers.

Ful is packed with goodness -  lots of protein, antioxidants, vitamins B1, B6 , B9 (folate/folic acid) and minerals,iron, copper, manganese, calcium, magnesium and is one of the highest plant sources of potassium.  The absolute essential is dried fava beans, but some recipes may also add lentils (which help to thicken the sauce) or even chickpeas.

Dried fava beans from my local Middle Eastern deli

We have several Middle Eastern shops nearby but if you don’t have one or cannot find dried fava beans in your grocery shop or supermarket you will probably find them in a Turkish shop where they may be called Bakla.

The cooking time will vary depending on the quality and age of the beans but usually they will need 2 – 3 hours.  If you cook more than you need, they will keep for up to a week in the fridge.   Pour the excess cooked beans into a container with an airtight lid and let it cool.  When cold pour the juice of one lemon on to the surface.  Put on the lid and store in the refrigerator until needed.

The essential ingredients are dried beans, olive oil, lemon juice and garlic but almost all versions also have cumin.  Here is my basic recipe which will be more than enough for 4 - 6 people or will keep in the fridge for several days.

Essential ingredients

300g dried broad (fava) beans
150 mls olive oil
juice of two large lemons
1 tbsp ground cumin
2 - 4 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed

Method

Rinse the dried beans under running cold water, place in a large bowl and cover with fresh water. Make sure there are two to three inches of water above the beans as they will absorb a lot - and leave to soak for several hours or overnight adding more water if necessary.

Rinse the cooked beans with cold water and drain.  Place the beans in unsalted water in a large saucepan and bring to the boil, then simmer with the lid on until tender, about 2 ½ to 3 hours - adding more water if necessary to keep them covered during cooking.

When the beans are tender, remove the lid and continue simmering to reduce the liquid or pour off any excess liquid – there should be enough to coat them but they should not be swimming. Remove two tablespoons of cooked beans, mash them and return to the pan and stir. This will thicken the sauce. 

Remove from the heat; add half the oil, half the lemon juice, the cumin, garlic and a teaspoon of salt. Adjust seasoning to taste adding more oil, lemon juice or salt as required.

It can then be served warm, possibly topped with chopped tomatoes and parsley.

A Ful breakfast

Variations

When the beans are cooked it is possible to add other ingredients. (If you can’t be bothered to soak and cook the beans you might find some ready cooked, canned or bottled which will save a great deal of time and fuel!)

It is generally acknowledged that the original ful was an Egyptian dish but there are now many national and regional variations and some would claim it as their national dish.

You could add finely chopped onions that have been cooked gently in olive oil until soft (with or without the addition of chopped tomatoes or tomato paste) which can be stirred into the beans with the cumin. Some recipes add crushed coriander seeds as well as cumin.

You can make spicy tomato ful by adding 1 tablespoon of tomato paste or passata and 1 teaspoon of harissa paste or half teaspoon of chilli powder, cayenne, or chilli flakes.

Another possibility is Tahini Ful.  Add 1 tablespoon of tahini paste mixed with 1 tablespoon of lemon juice. There is also a variety in Egypt of Butter Ful where 1 -2 tablespoons of butter are stirred in to the final mix.

Usually it is served with warmed flatbread and often with hard boiled eggs, halved or quartered on top or with olives and tomato salad, or cucumber and yoghourt or for a more authentic Middle East dish, labneh.

As you can see it is a very versatile dish so you can experiment with your favourite herbs and spices and create your own signature dish.

Good cooking!

John Austin

Hove, August 2018

Broad Beans

Broad beans - they're my faves!

(Thanks to Caroline Bull for the headline pun)

Broad beans did not feature in my childhood diet and yet they have come to be one of my favourite vegetables.  My wife, Sylvi, had also not experienced broad beans in her childhood diet but first came in contact with them in the early stages of secondary school in biology lessons on reproduction - the sex life of the broad bean.  My encounter was later, in botany in the lower sixth, when we were studying negative and positive phototropism and geotropism - but I still hadn't tasted one!  They weren't included in school dinners and I had never seen them in the local greengrocers or the Co-op.

I think my first taste came in my early twenties and I wasn't greatly impressed as they must have been rather old - they were dry, fibrous and fairly tasteless.  Soon afterwards, however, I discovered younger ones which hadn't been boiled to death and I became an ardent fan.

In my late twenties, I discovered that they were easy to grow on the allotment which I then had in Charlton.  Like most allotment produce, a lot come all at once when friends and neighbours become beneficiaries - but fortunately, broad beans are one of the vegetables which freeze well without impairing either the texture or the flavour.  You just need sufficient space in the freezer.

The pictures below are of last year's crop in Hove.

I have tried sowing them in November/December and February/March.  November sown beans will crop two to three weeks before those sown two to three months later - but the great advantage is that they usually crop before the blackfly arrives.  This year the crop from the ones sown last November has been excellent but the February/March sown crop has been a great disappointment.  I think that in future I will sow more broad beans but only in November.

In view of the favourable comments about my broad beans from friends in France, Spain and Italy, I decided to devote a blog to this great leguminous vegetable. In France they are known as fèves, in Spain habas, but faba in Galicia and faves in Catalonia and Valencia and also faves in Italy.

Broad beans are very nutritious.  Fresh beans, whether cooked or raw, are a good source of folic acid, iron, manganese and dietary fibre. Fresh or dried, they have no saturated fat or cholesterol and contain a high concentration of thiamin, vitamin K, vitamin B-6, potassium, copper, selenium, zinc and magnesium. They are also an inexpensive source of protein. 


Another plus is that, when growing, broad beans have a symbiotic relationship with nitrogen-fixing bacteria in the soil which thrive on nodules on the beans' roots.  Nitrogen from the air is converted into other nitrogenous compounds which are deposited in the soil and which will benefit both the growing beans but also next year's crops that are grown in the same spot, without the need for artificial nitrogen rich fertilizers.  This is one of the reasons why crop rotation (which I wrote about in January) is so important.

In England, broad beans tend to be served plainly boiled or steamed as a vegetable accompaniment to a main course. In Spain they are often treated as a dish in their own right - often cooked with serrano ham as habas con jamon - one of the most delicious tapa, or with chorizo. In Murcia, I have had habas con morcilla, broad beans with black pudding (blood sausage) - and good it was!

Dried, they have been an important part of the food supply across the Middle East and north and east Africa for centuries. In Arabic they are alfawl, and appear in recipe books and menus as fawl, fool, fūl, fuul or foul - most notably seen in the famous Egyptian dish, Fūl midammis  (or just ful or ful medames), eaten widely across the Middle East at breakfast time. Egyptian falafel, taameyya/ta'ameya, said to be the original are made with fava and not chickpeas.

The basic ingredients of fūl are soaked and cooked dried fava beans with olive oil, garlic and cumin. There are very many regional adaptations and it is a classless dish.  I have eaten fūl for breakfast in Aleppo, Damascus, Cairo, Amman and various places in Lebanon and Palestine as well as a side dish in Ethiopia. I have eaten fūl in 5 star hotels, hostels, on the street and in refugee camps.

Fūl may have many added ingredients such as chopped parsley, onion, lemon juice, chili pepper or harissa, Za'atar (Zatar/Zaatar) and other vegetable, herb and spice ingredients.

I am posting two recipes - one using fresh beans, habas con jamón and one for dried beans, Fūl midammis.

freshly podded broad beans from the allotment

dried fava beans from the deli

John Austin,

Hove, August 2018