Broad beans harvesting and cooking

Room 8 and Room 16 worked super hard harvesting, shelling and making some tasty dishes with our Broad beans. It was a great to see all those little and bigger hands popping the pods and collecting all the beans. We made three dishes last week, all of which used veggies from our gardens. We enjoyed sharing a Broad Bean, mint and feta salad, a Broad bean hummus, a radish dip and we even made crackers and harvested our own carrots, which we washed and chopped up for carrot sticks. It was great to have so many students on hand to get through the vast amount of Broad beans we had grown!

Here's a few of the recipes for the dishes we made. They were a bit hit with the students and adults.

Broad Bean Hummus

Ingredients

400g shelled broad beans
½-1 garlic clove, crushed with a little salt
Approx 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
Generous squeeze of lemon juice
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

METHOD

Put the broad beans in a pan, cover with water and bring to the boil. Lower the heat and simmer for 5-10 minutes (depending on age and size) until tender, then drain. Set aside to cool, then slip the beans out of their skins.

Put the skinned broad beans in a food processor or blender with the garlic, 3 tablespoons of oil, a good squeeze of lemon juice and some salt and pepper. Process to a thick, slightly coarse purée, adding more oil if it seems too thick and dry.

When you're happy with the texture, transfer the purée to a bowl. Taste and adjust the  seasoning with more salt, pepper and lemon juice as needed.
By Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall from River Cottage Every Day

Broad bean, feta and mint salad

Ingredients

450g fresh broad beans, shelled weight
125g Feta cheese, cubed
2 tbsp chopped fresh mint
1 tbsp white wine vinegar
3 tbsp olive oil
Salt and pepper

METHOD

Put the beans in boiling water for 3-4 minutes until tender.
Drain well and put into a bowl.
Mix together the oil, vinegar and mint and stir into the hot beans.
When the beans have cooled to room temperature, mix in the cubed Feta and serve.

Crackers

Ingredients:

250g flour

1tsp baking powder

salt

125mls water 

2 tbsp oil

METHOD

Mix it all together

Roll it between baking paper, 

Sprinkle with topping of choice (salt, seeds, spices, Parmesan) 

Cut using a pair of kitchen scissors and bake for approx 10 mins