It’s summer, and that means new and wonderful things pop up at the farmer’s markets. My neighborhood market has started again, bringing the brutally peppery radishes (grown about 3 blocks from my apartment, by hippies of course) I’m currently slathering with locally-churned organic salted butter and eating like there’s no tomorrow. But there was another, more exciting find the other week: fresh fava beans. Nutty, sharp, and nutritious: despite the work required, I had to have them.

Being short on human liver (mine’s on vacation from my beer habit) and nice Chianti, plus preferring comfort food to cannibalism, I decided to put some fancy pants on a classic: beans on toast. The traditional English dish is usually made with canned baked beans and probably-stale bread, neither of which I had handy, and eaten for breakfast. I wanted dinner, and I made do, as I do, with what ingredients I had on hand. The result was a delicious and fresh and summery dinner, which actually could be served in smaller bites as fabulous hors d’œuvres. And, it was all cooked with fresh, local ingredients (except the wine – that came from a bottle).

At the farmer’s market, I bought:

– Fava beans (about 2 pounds)
– 1 medium Hungarian hot pepper
– Garlic (a couple cloves)
– Lots of fresh-picked spearmint
– Butter
– (Cheap) white wine

Start caramelizing your (diced) garlic and peppers in the butter, and put some salt water on to boil. Remove the beans from their pods. Blanch beans about 2 minutes, and plunge them into ice water to stop cooking. Remove the bean sheaths, which are chewy and not delicious.

Now your peppers should be nice and brown and yummy, so go ahead and add the favas to your pan. Over medium heat, saute the lot with some more butter for about 6-7 minutes. While that’s going, add about a half cup of wine to a glass with some mint to infuse. When the favas are almost done, add a handful of freshly torn mint leaves and toss that around. Remove your sauteed beans and peppers to a bowl, and toss in some more fresh mint. Now, deglaze your pan with minted wine and, while that’s reducing to almost-syrup, toast some bread (I used sourdough whole wheat).

Put the sauteed beans over the toast, and pour your deglazing liquid over that.

I’ve made this again a few times since, and found that the addition of fresh English peas is wonderful, but adding vidalia onion makes the flavor too earthy. Experimentation is fun!

-MAW[ad]