Broad beans on toast

Broad beans on toast would be called an antipasta in Italy; high in vegetable-protein, with added chopped boiled egg or cheese, it makes a very satisfying dish.

If you really want to be posh, call it a bruschetta which just means on burned-toast.

My favourite in fact is placing our broad beans on pan-fried toast made from sourdough bread.

They are also known as fava-beans, and tuinbonen in Holland.

Broad bean on toast, also known as a fava bean bruschetta.

"A rose by any other name would smell just as sweet."

- Romeo and Juliet

You can turn this into a top-notch dish with broad beans from your garden and real bread made with 100% wholemeal flour; both are difficult to find in the shops so the chances are you will be making your bruschetta just like everyone else. So here's the basic recipe.

Ingredients

  • 1 cup of shelled broad-beans
  • 1/3 cup of cubed feta or other favourite cheese
  • Lime or lemon
  • 1 fresh peppadew or other mild chili, or a good shake of red hot flakes
  • 1 TBSP of your favourite herbs such as sweet basil, parsley or mint
  • 3 TBSP olive oil
  • Pinch of salt unless using a cheese like feta
  • 1 clove of garlic
  • Slices of your favourite artisan-bread

Go for it

  1. Boil your broad beans for a few minutes in salted water until tender.
  2. Pop them out of their husks only if they appear old and hard.
  3. Chop the beans and add them to a small-bowl.
  4. Shave off some of the lime-zest, and then squeeze a teaspoon of the juice onto the beans.
  5. Add a tablespoon of the olive-oil, the finely chopped spices, herbs and garlic; salt and red pepper and cheese as desired.
  6. Toast your artisan-bread.
  7. Brush with the remaining olive oil and top each slice with the broad-bean mix.

Keep it simple Stupid

Which of the top three forms of broad beans are you going to use?

Three forms of broad beans, with the husks at the bottom.
  1. If you remove first the shell and then the husk which together contain most of the fibre, it will mean they are highly-refined, and is the reason why it is reported that the glycemic index of fava beans is very high. It also means a lot more time to prepare.
  2. Half the nutrients in citrus are found in the pulp; using only the juice discards much of the vitamin-C, limonin and other phytochemicals; and yet more of the fibre too.
  3. Using the grill instead of the toaster takes much longer and wastes electricity; it contributes in some small but accumulative way to greenhouse-gases.
  4. Brushing the toast first with olive oil and then with the cut garlic is tiresome, time-consuming and wastes much of the nutrition in the rest of the clove.

Keep it simple, Stupid; our slogan is slow food, made fast. Saving you time and money; it is all part of the Cyan Zone philosophy.

Let your food be your medicine

And now for the better way to make your broad-beans on toast.

Unfortunately your supermarket loaf will never qualify as medicine; even most so-called wholemeal artisan bread is made from refined flour. And broad beans picked when too mature become hard and starchy; that is why most cooks first pod them, and then pop them to remove the husk.

Remember that more than half the L-dopa in broad beans is to be found in the young shells. That's the stuff that gives them their magic satiety factor.

So if you want your food to be your medicine, growing broad beans and baking your own artisan bread is the way to go. Both will improve your well-being in leaps and bounds; more about that below.

Ingredients

  • 1 cup of young broad-beans, freshly picked, top and tailed
  • 1 hard-boiled egg or a chunk of your favourite cheese, cubed.
  • Lime or lemon.
  • A fresh mild but piquant chili. Or red pepper-flakes.
  • A pinch of turmeric.
  • 1 clove or perhaps two of garlic.
  • 1 TBSP of your favourite herbs such as sweet-basil or parsley.
  • 1 TBSP of olive-oil.
  • Pinch of salt.
  • Slices of artisan-bread.

Go for it

  1. Boil the young whole broad bean pods in salted water for a few minutes until tender.
  2. Drain and chop and add to a bowl.
  3. Cube your feta cheese, or crumb the hard-boiled egg, and add to the beans.
  4. Shave off some of the zest, peel the lemon and then cut a slice including the pulp. Chop it up.
  5. Add the finely-chopped herbs, including the garlic, chili and olive oil.
  6. Toast your artisan-bread well, even slightly burned so it is crisp.
  7. Top with your broad-bean mixture and serve while still warm. You could put them under a hot grill for a few minutes.

If raw garlic gives you indigestion, drop the clove into the boiling-water for a minute.

Broad bean pods and shells

Blue zone people grow and enjoy broad beans.

Just as we humans like to remove most of the bran and germ from our wheat before baking, so it slides deliciously down the throat, most recipes recommend you discard both the pod and the bean husk. That is why they are listed as having a high glycemic-index; it then becomes in fact highly refined.

The tender young pods contain important nutrients and together with the husk of the bean have invaluable fibre that lowers the GI and provide vital prebiotics for the teeming billions of bugs in the colon.

It takes a little time to retrain the tongue and lips; ultimately we have to accept that whole foods are chewy.

Nutritionally, we live in a mad world, that would have you remove the most important parts of your wheat and beans, discard them and then separately purchase them in capsules at great expense.

To get the very best from your flour, we recommend purchasing a small mill and baking your own artisan bread; you can then have the very best loaf in the whole world, with all the finest nutrients and far superior taste for under a dollar. Dinkum, I do it every day.

Oh, and if you are gluten intolerant you will find that by adding a sourdough-starter, your problems with a grumbling belly will be a matter of the past.

Alas, you are most unlikely to find young broad-bean pods in the shops. You have to grow them yourself.

Just five-minutes a day to bake a bread machine loaf.

Time

Well-being that will take you to stunning eighties and nineties with little or no medication and all your marbles and joints intact takes time and some planning.

If the thought of spending five-minutes every morning milling the 100% flour for the best tasting bread in the world, and some time in the garden growing your own broad beans is just too much, then alas you must go your own way.

Spending time in the garden is our way of what is known as forest bathing; savouring the senses as you plant and nurture, compost and harvest your food. Those who enjoy life this way have little need for gyms for exercise or psychiatrists for anxiety and stress; and doctors for their medicines too.

"When the world wearies, and society ceases to satisfy,

there's always the garden."

Broad beans on toast

Broad beans on toast makes a wholesome meal in ten or fifteen-minutes.

We add just a little turmeric to many dishes; it gives a little distinctive flavour whilst contributing to the fight against many serious diseases. Simply the existence of anti-inflammatory compounds that inhibit the nasty COX 2 enzyme is sufficient reason; that causes pain and swelling in joints and has been linked to colon tumours[1].

"Luis had made her eat a particular kind of dried-ham at lunch with broad beans called habas which he said the Moors had loved."

- A Spanish Lover by Joanna Trollope.

Ketogenic diets

Made the usual way with broad-beans deprived of their pods and commercial bread you are likely to find the top recipe above will raise your blood glucose; it is fattening. So those advocating one of the many ketogenic diets will absolutely forbid meals like this.

Broad beans on toast made our way is central to all five of the blue zones where longevity is the norm. The way I see it is that we either take the time to grow and prepare wholesome foods, and accept that they are rather more coarse because of the fibre, or be prepared that medication and an early demise will most likely be our lot.

We live and die by the choices we make. I simply cannot abide by the thought that I must be constantly counting calories and on this or that diet. Give me rather broad beans on toast made our way.

Learning how to plant broad-beans is what enabled me to control the tremor in my right hand. It's all about dopamine.

  1. Specific inhibition of COX 2 expression by dietary curcumin in HT-29 human colon tumour cells

Newsletter

Our newsletter is entitled "create a cyan zone" at your home, preserving both yourself, your family and friends, and Mother Earth for future generations. We promise not to spam you with daily emails promoting various products. You may get an occasional nudge to buy one of my books!

Here are the back issues.

  • Mill your own flour
  • Bake your own sourdough bread
  • Microplastics from our water
  • Alternative types of water storage
  • Wear your clothes out
  • Comfort foods
  • Create a bee-friendly environment
  • Go to bed slightly hungry
  • Keep bees
  • Blue zone folk are religious
  • Reduce plastic waste
  • Family is important
  • What can go in compost?
  • Grow broad beans for longevity
  • Harvest and store sunshine
  • Blue zone exercise
  • Harvest and store your rainwater
  • Create a cyan zone at your home

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