Yes, hummus traditionally is made with chickpeas.  Its name, in fact, is derived from the Arabic word for the little round legumes you might know as garbanzo beans.

So this dish doesn’t really qualify as hummus.  Yet fresh fava beans, with their faintly sweet, herbal flavor and beautiful pale green color, make such a terrific variation on the now familiar dip that it would be a  shame to get hung up on authenticity.

In the bowl, the savory spread may look a bit like guacamole, but in the mouth its antecedents are clear.  Garlic, lemon juice, olive oil and the creamy sesame paste called tahini bring classic flavors to this new take on the Middle Eastern original. (more…)

Sometimes there aren’t any shortcuts to good food.  If you want the flavor of the real thing, you just have to put in the time and effort.

Fresh fava beans are a prime example.  Each plump little bean must be liberated from its cozy cocoon within a sturdy pod before you can even think about peeling and cooking it.

Yet these beans are so wonderful that cooks around the world are happy to spend the time shucking and peeling them for everything from a simple antipasto to a spring stew with artichokes and new potatoes.  The subtle flavor is one of the true delights of spring — fresh and sweet with buttery overtones and just a faintly bitter finish.

This year, I fell in love with a salad of tender spring favas and salty pecorino cheese tossed with fresh arugula, basil and mint that I found in Sara Jenkins’ Mediterranean cookbook “Olives and Oranges,” Houghton Mifflin, 2008.  Simply dressed with olive oil and sea salt, it’s a feast of the season.  (more…)

As far as I’m concerned you can never have too many cookbooks.  My own collection spills out of bookcases in two rooms, upstairs and down.

Shelf space is at a premium, though, so I’m fairly selective about what I add to the collection these days.  A cookbook has to bring something new and unique to the kitchen before I give it a home.  I don’t need another compendium of Italian standards or repackaging of old cookie recipes and I’m hesitant to add a book from a cuisine I rarely cook because the ingredients are such a challenge to find.

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At last, fava beans are flooding the farmers markets again. These plump, shiny legumes are among my favorite vegetables. When they’re fresh off the bush, they deliver the bright, green taste of spring.

Last weekend, piles of gleaming pods graced several stands at my local farmers market and I couldn’t resist. Part of the charm of favas is their season is short. You eat them when you can get them and they’re best young and tender.

Afficionados eat them raw, unzipping the leathery pods and plucking the beans out of their cottony beds. The tiniest beans, no bigger than a thumbnail, need no further preparation to enjoy their sweet young flavor. But the larger beans hide within a slightly bitter, pale green jacket and really should be peeled before eating.

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Some people drool over Neiman-Marcus catalogs filled with designer clothes and $600 shoes. My guilty pleasure is cookware catalogs abrim with pricey pots and clever gadgets.

I always make time to thumb through the Williams-Sonoma catalog even though I rarely can afford anything on its glossy pages. That’s how I ran across Thomas Keller’s slow-cooker cassoulet, photographed temptingly in All-Clad’s shiny, deluxe slow cooker ($279.95, gasp, plus tax and shipping), last week.

Keller, of course, is All-Clad’s celebrity chef spokesman. He’s paid to tout their products, which always are top of the line with prices to match. On the other hand, he’s the man who turned The French Laundry into arguably the best restaurant in the country. His palate is pitch perfect.

If Keller was willing to put his name on a slow cooker cassoulet recipe, I felt compelled to try it.

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