Broad Beans on toast

Simple lunch, but oh so tasty. Broad beans must are rapidly going out of season, but if you can still find any - make this. (You can sometimes find frozen, too.)

First, you need a lot of broad beans. A LOT. They're mostly pod. Say that you want at least 200 ml of shelled broad beans, and I think we had nearly a kilo to start with. (Sorry, didn't pay exact attention.)

Shell all those beans, and cook them in rapidly boiling water for 4-5 minutes. Cool them in cold water, then cut a tiny slit into each bean and slip off the skin.

Toss the naked beans with the juice of one lemon, a teaspoon of sambal oelek or other spicy chili paste, a little salt, and perhaps a tablespoon of finely chopped cilantro if you happen to have it.

Toast some bread. Spread with cream cheese, then mound on the broad beans. Top with a slice of air-cured ham - we had serrano ham. (It's obviously fine to skip the ham, for a totally veggie toast.)

Enjoy!

Creamy White Bean Soup

This is similar to my "Italian Lentil Soup". The main difference, really, is that I was out of lentils and resorted to using a can of white beans instead. As it cooked, I suspected that the toddler wouldn't touch it as it was, so I puréed it until smooth. And voila! He scarfed down three bowls, and pronounced that he LOVED soup.

Brilliant.

Creamy White Bean Soup
70 g bacon
1 tbsp olive oil
1 onion
1 garlic clove
2 carrots
2 parsnips
2 potatoes
800 ml water
1 tbsp concentrated vegetable stock, or stock cube
400 g white beans, canned
100 ml milk
100 ml cream
1 tsp dried thyme
salt

Chop onion and garlic. Peel the carrots, parsnips and potatoes, and cut into coins and dice, respectively. Cut the bacon into strips.

Fry the bacon in a dry frying pan until it's lightly browned. Add olive oil, and the onions, garlic, carrots and parsnips. Fry for five minutes, then add the potatoes.Fry for a few more minutes, then add water, stock, thyme and the can of white beans.

Cover and cook for about 20 minutes, until all the vegetables are soft. Add milk and cream. Purée the whole thing, ideally with a stick blender. Add more milk if you think it's too thick at this point. Season with salt.

We ate it with some stale sourdough bread that I sliced thinly, dipped in olive oil and baked at 200°C for about 10 minutes. Yummy!

Habas con fuet

To keep up with the Spanish food: fresh broad beans (habas) with onion, garlic, olive oil, sherry vinegar and fuet sausage. Delicious!!