We Fava-red This Version

Because the fava beans I painstakingly shelled and steamed reminded me of edamame, I thought perhaps a little Asian twist would perk up their mild flavor without drowning it. I was dreaming of ginger and shoyu and such.

In the fridge I found an avocado, some fresh bright orange carrots, a single tangerine and some bacon left over from my BLT at Barney's. With some green onion and rice vinegar, all that seemed like a fun combination for my second fava salad attempt.

I took the zest off the tangerine before sectioning it for the salad and kept the zest to add to the dressing. To the zest, I added sliced green onion, the shoyu, rice wine vinegar, grated fresh ginger and a dollop of Dijon mustard, mixed it all together and drizzled it very lightly over the avocado slices, tangerine sections, fava beans, carrot slices and bacon bits.

It was a beautiful salad with fresh bright colors and tangy, lively dressing. The creamy avocado was great with the tangerine, the crunch of the carrot and bacon bits. Once again, I felt that the delicate favas were a little out of their league with these big flavors but they did add a pretty note of green and, because I used only a light drizzle of dressing, there was an occasional hint of fresh fava flavor peeking through from bite to bite.

We favored this version strongly over the previous one - this one, we'd even make again!

Fava-ulous Salad?

Never having tried fava beans before, when the Mad Meat Genius gave me a big bag of them over a cup of Catahoula coffee, I went searching on the interwebs for recipe. The one I found for which I had all the ingredients on hand was a salad of fresh favas dressed with creme fraiche, lemon zest, fresh mint, salt and pepper.

Although we enjoyed the fresh taste of the favas, which remind me of edamame once they are liberated from their waxy skins, we rather thought the dressing was heavy and overpowered the green freshness of the tender beans. The lemon I had on hand was a Meyer, so perhaps the zest was too sweet, even though I added the lemon's worth of juice to the dressing, too, not called for in the recipe. Even the gorgeous bright kelly green of the favas was paled by the leaden dressing.

All in all, while this salad was okay, we felt that something lighter would have showcased the favas better. Stand by for the next experiment!