Fried Beans

Fried Beans
To frye Beanes
Take youre Beanes and boyle them and putte them into a fryinge panne with a dyssche of butter, and one or two onions, and so lette them frye tyll they be browne altogether, then caste a lyttle salte upon them, and then serve them forthe.
--Anonymous, A Proper Newe Booke of Cokerye, c. 1557

2 lb. fava beans
2 onions, chopped
2 tablespoons butter
Salt

Shell the beans and blanch them in boiling water for ten minutes. Run under cold water and remove the tough outer covering.

Sauté onions in butter until translucent, add beans and cook until everything is browning. Sprinkle with salt.

Notes:
These were very simple and very good. And where I made my biggest mistake. Fava beans are more pod than bean. According to the New Basics Cookbook, plan on a pound of beans per person (!). I wish I’d checked before the day I was cooking. So there was nowhere near enough of them.

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