Maybe it was the combination of sunshine, sand, beaches, sangria, Ybor City and Greek food market influences…but when I returned home a couple weeks back from Florida with these big, beautiful dried fava beans and lamb sausage, I broke out my bold, colorfully hand painted Italian dishes to serve this Easter inspired spring stew – of fava with leek, fennel, shallot, lamb sausage, lemon, tomatoes, and fresh herbs – on.
And, though winter is (thankfully) behind us, and this may indeed look like a hearty meal, the addition of lemons brightened up the flavors making it a perfect spring dish.
There is no formal recipe, which is how I normally roll, but I’ll share with you what I did (below), and what I used, loosely. As with anything, add, or omit, ingredients, according to your own taste.
The only part that may be a little confusing is when it comes to soaking and peeling (or not peeling) the seed coat layer of the dried fava beans. I have seen similar recipes calling for leaving it on, and others, calling for peeling them off.
I made two different recipes using these large dried fava beans.
One was a soup, and for that, I peeled the skin off, as I did not simmer the soup long enough for the skins to soften adequately.
The stew, which is the recipe I’m sharing here, will simmer for hours, so the skins soften up enough to eat. In fact, because this recipe simmers for so long, if the seed coats were peeled off, the beans would essentially turn to mush.
Be sure to prepare the beans as directed below, and expect them to still have a little bit of a ‘bite’ in character.
Fava Bean and Lamb Sausage Stew
One 16 ounce bad of large, dried *fava beans. Soak in a large bowl covered with cold water, overnight, or, for at least 12 hours. I soaked mine for 14 hours.
Drain, wash, add them to a heavy bottomed soup pot, cover with water plus about 2 inches, and bring to a boil, and boil for 30 minutes, adding water if necessary. Drain, rinse, and set aside.
Rinse and dry the soup pot, add a couple slugs of olive oil, and add in whatever cut up sausage you are using. I used 4 lamb sausage links cut into a little bigger than bite sized chunks.
Brown all sides and continue cooking for about 10 minutes, rendering a healthy amount of grease.
Remove the sausage, and set aside.
Add in your choice of veggies, a generous pinch of salt, and cook in the leftover sausage oil left in the soup pot, scraping up all the brown bits, until soft and starting to color. I used fennel, leek, shallot, red onions, sliced, and then crushed garlic at the end.
Add one large lemon, quartered and slightly squeezed, to the pot and cook for about 5 minutes more.
Return the sausage, and all juices, back in to the pot, as well as either two fresh cut up tomatoes and their juices, or, an 8 oz can of whole plum tomatoes squeezed and crushed in your hand before adding to the pot.
Add in enough water, or broth of your choice, to cover everything by about 3 inches, as well as your choice of fresh herbs/spices. I used 2 whole bay leaves, peppercorns, some fresh thyme and rosemary branches.
Bring to a boil, then simmer, partially covered, for at least 2 /2 hours to 3 1/2 hours. Checking the liquids and adding, if necessary, you’ll want extra juices.
Cook until the fava beans are soft to the bite.
Taste and adjust seasonings, remove herb branches.
Serve in warm bowls, with a little drizzle of olive oil, fresh squeeze of lemon, sprinkled with fresh flat leaf parsley, fennel fronds and/or dill, and a bread of your choice for soaking up all the extra broth. I used a rosemary/sea salt boules.
*www.hellenicharvest.com is the web address on the bag I brought home from Tarpon Springs.
