Recipe #40: foul mudammas

 This is a homemade easy version of a classic tasty Lebanese dish, based on verbal instructions from my favourite Lebanese grocer, Shaddy of Brighton Clover Farm. He gave me the broad brushstrokes version of how to make this at home while I was shopping in his store and buying the star ingredient, the canned fava beans, many years ago. 

Actually, the way I remember it is that I was shopping at the store and chatting with Shaddy, as one does, and told him how much I loved this dish at a local Lebanese restaurant. Shaddy, who never minces his words, asked me why the heck (he did not say heck) I was paying good money at a restaurant for something I could make at home for a fraction of the price and much tastier? I told him to go on, I was interested. He went forth to show me the cans of fava beans and told me how to prepare them.

This is what I remember from those long-ago verbal instructions, and how I’ve been enjoying them at home for years since.

Ingredients:


Directions:

Empty the entire contents of the can of fava beans, including their liquid, into a medium saucepan on medium high heat:


Crush some garlic in there, I’m using one gigantic clove:


Squeeze some lemon juice, I’m using an entire small lemon because I like it lemony, and check out the cool lemon juicer—no seeds will end up in my dish:


Get that up to a low boil or vigorous simmer to heat and cook things up and boil off some of the liquid:


Chop up some tomatoes, onion, and parsley:


When the beans have simmered a little while (5 minutes? 10?), smash a few—but not all—with a potato masher to get some varied bean textures and thicken things up:


Pour the garlicky lemony beans into a bowl and trickle in some olive oil:


Decorate the top of the hot garlicky lemony olive oily beans with the sliced tomatoes, onion and parsley and serve:


And enjoy with some pita bread or, like me, buttered gluten free toast, a kombucha spritzer, and my iPad, where I’m entering this very blog post as I eat! How meta!



Shout out to Shaddy and the Brighton Clover Farm!

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