Are fava beans worth the trouble?

Foods, like clothes come in and out of fashion and all of a sudden, you see them everywhere; restaurant menus, magazine recipes, supermarket shelves. Examples of trendy foods in the past few years include pomegranates, mojitos, heirloom tomatoes, and fava beans.

For several years now, I've wanted to try cooking fava beans, but always seemed to miss them as they seem to be available fresh for a very short period of time. I finally saw them at the market this week and figured I'd give them a shot.

Preparing favas is quite an ordeal. Here are the steps:

1) Shuck the beans out of their pods.

2) Blanch beans
3) De-shell beans


4) Cook or dress the beans.


The beans are often served with pasta or as a salad. In this case, I tossed them with with a simple garlic lemon vinaigrette, fresh black pepper, sea salt and a little grated pecorino romano.

My conclusion - at $2.99/lb or about 20cts per bite and a 4 step process to prepare, they tasted a lot like... just about anything tossed in garlic lemon vinaigrette. Next time, I'll stick with frozen edamame!