Making of a Recipe: Springtime Fava Crostini

Image by JamesCollier/Flickr

A few weeks ago, I spent a lovely weekend in Sonoma, playing in the kitchen with 30-something chefs, food stylists, cooking geeks, and underground supperclub hosts. Eat Retreat is probably the best-documented gathering I’ve ever been a part of (who of this foodie group doesn’t have a blog or Flickr stream?), so I’ll skip the recap and just tell you what I cooked up. 

I spent Saturday afternoon overlooking a green valley with BiRite marketing manager Kersten Bourne and 18 Reasons‘ Rosie Branson Gill, unzipping fava pods and uprooting the beans from their purses with our thumbs. An hour later, I hauled a huge orange bowl with several pounds of jewel-like favas down the hill and into the kitchen, where I quickly blanched and shocked them. I spent the next three hours under a tree or over the dining table with several other retreaters looking for something to busy their hands with. As we worked our way through the second shelling, we chatted and took pictures, but mostly we just zoned out and enjoyed doing something quiet and productive together. 

After, I noticed the beans could benefit from another 5 minutes in boiling, salted water. I reserved a few cups of the cooking water and drained the rest. With the favas back in a dry pot, I splashed in a generous amount of olive oil, black pepper, a handful of mint leaves, and half a preserved lemon (rinsed) and took a hand blender to the whole thing, adding some of the reserved cooking water as needed to get a thick, hummus-like consistency. Kerstin suggested we keep a bit of the grain, so I held back from blending it too smooth. 

From there, we roughly cut some seed bread into uneven pieces, brushed them with olive oil, toasted them in the oven, and topped them with a generous schmear of the puree. Even with the lemon, the favas were quite rich, so I quickly made a simple dressing of half olive oil and half fresh lemon juice and sprinkled a few drops over the crostini. 

As I was plating the apps, Dr. Michael Rakotz suggested pulling some edible flowers out of the herb fridge (yes, a whole refrigerator stuffed with fresh herbs!) and topping the crostini with a few buds. Lovely. 

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