Curry Fava Bean Salad

Doesn’t Smokey look so comfy?

She just loves my pillow and never misses an opportunity to make make herself at home on it when I forget to make the bed further reminding me that I’m out of my game this week still recovering from a bladder infection and slightly goofed up on antibiotics. Ugh, I’ve been cranky, crampy, and itchy since taking them. Glad the infection has cleared up, but won’t miss the side effects!

We received a farm box today and I was giddy trying to figure out what fresh ingredients to use from it for dinner. I settled on the fava beans and fresh corn and decided to prepare the beans in the most labor intensive fashion removing both shells and parboiling before cooking – whew!

I rarely get fava beans because they’re time consuming to prepare and this was a daring adventure on a week night! Hubby helped me remove the pod shell and, after about five minutes, the bean pile was reduced to this:

I dumped the beans into boiling water for about 2 minutes to soften the outer bean shell for removing.

Which came off easily after parboiling.

And after another 10 minutes of removing that shell, this was all I had left from that huge pile of beans! The compost bin got more of them than I did!

I sauteed the beans in a little coconut oil with a handful of pine nuts and dried coconut shavings to cook and add a crispy texture to the beans.

Then tossed the mixture with raw corn, cilantro, chopped tomatoes, and chopped red pepper.

And seasoned the mixture with a heaping teaspoon of curry powder and a dash of salt and pepper.

The end result was very festive and colorful making a great, semi-raw summer dish.

And the curry coconut flavor was divine with the crunchy coconut flakes and pine nuts while the fava beans added a heartier texture to the dish.

Even though they were a lot of work, the flavor and texture of fava beans is worth it and they’re a great source of protein and fiber. Grilling them in the shell with flavored oils is an easier and fun way to eat them as a flavorful summer finger food which I think I’ll do next time using chipotle olive oil.

Now I need to track down a clean pillow case!