Broad Bean Fritters | Vegetables Recipes | Jamie Oliver Recipes (2024)

FAQs

How do you make Jamie Oliver broad beans? ›

The best broad bean salad

Roughly mash the blanched broad beans – you can do this with a food processor, chop them up with a knife or crush them in a pestle and mortar. Mix together with the small raw beans, the pecorino, lemon juice, oil and some of the mint, finely chopped.

Check if your beans need soaking overnight beforehand, and then simmer for around 7 minutes until they are soft with a little bit of a bite. You can then roast them as per the instructions for frozen broad beans. For this recipe, you will need around 140g or 1 cup of dried beans.

Some may say that the peeled husk needs to be removed as it can be a little leathery, but if the bean is young and fresh it really should be tender, if large, out of season or frozen it may be worth peeling.

Did you know that you can cook (and eat) those furry little sleeping bag covers for your broad beans? A chef tipped us off on this one. They're delicious – as anything that's fried and dusted with salt is. Your compost bin may start feeling deprived, though.

Soak your seeds for at least 12 hours before planting, I add a pinch of Epsom Salts to the water to speed up germination. Plant the seeds about 5cm deep, 15cm apart in double rows about 20cm between and 80cm between sets of double rows.

A general rule of thumb is to soak the beans for at least 4 hours, or overnight. Boiling: Boiling the beans for 5-10 minutes in a pot of water can also help remove the bitterness.

But, then I learned something astonishing: You can actually skip soaking beans over night, and actually you should. Not only does it shorten the amount of time until you have ready-to-eat beans, it also produces a more flavorful end result.

They're the same species as the fresh or frozen green broad beans more familiar in British cooking but fava beans are the fully mature dried fruit of smaller seeded varieties. Varieties of Vicia faba grown to be eaten as fresh broad beans tend to have larger, flatter, broader (hence the name) seeds.

Modern cooking websites often say it doesn't matter. In a way, they're both right. Soaking beans can help improve the texture of the final product once the beans are cooked and reduce the gas produced when the food is being digested. But it isn't necessary to soak them.

These light and versatile beans are a perfect summer ingredient. Roast, sauté, stew or fry them until crispy. Blend or mash them to make fritters or a broad bean dip. Toss raw broad beans through a salad.

Are broad beans OK to eat raw? ›

If the beans are small in size, then can be eaten raw. Larger beans need to be freed from their tough outer skins.

But bitter flavours are good for us: they aid digestion and add a depth of flavour to food. For this reason, I never peel broad beans (even later in summer, when they grow large and bitter); this also saves both unnecessary waste and preparation time.

Broad beans have a casing that can be tough and bitter, especially when the beans are fully grown. If you pinch a bean between your fingertips and squeeze, the bright green inner bean should break through the casing.

But for some reason, eating beans can result in more than just bloating and flatulence. Fava beans, also known as broad beans, can cause some people to experience a sudden rapid breakdown of their red blood cells, a condition known as hemolytic anemia.

Freezing broad beans is quick and easy and gives you access to delicious beans at any time of the year! Blanching your broad beans will increase their lifespan in your freezer, but it's fine to skip the blanching part if you plan to use the frozen broad beans within 4-6 weeks.

Basic broad bean recipe

Tip the podded beans into a pan of boiling water and cook for two minutes. Drain and cover with cold water to cool, then drain again and peel the outer skin from the beans. Stir in the olive oil and add lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste.

If they're young and tender, just steam them for about 3 minutes; if they're a bit older, boiling is best as it softens and tenderises the skin - add salt, barely cover with boiling water and give them 3-4 minutes.