HABAS (FAVA BEANS) FOUND AT FARMERS MARKET, RECALLING A LOST TIME

And here's another flashback to 1976, when we first had these cooked with garlic, tomatoes and bacon in the old estancia kitchen of Marysa's friend Liliane, who raised cattle in Buenos Aires Province.  We picked them first from her garden.  This sounds just like one of those obnoxious French cooking memoirs - forgive me - but it actually happened and I just have to record it.  Might as well get it all out there: during that stay I also was almost killed trying to ride a horse bareback, and spent afternoons sitting under a tree reading Proust.

So when yesterday at the féria I saw the most beautiful habas - not like the sad-looking bruised ones that turn up at Whole Foods and occasionally PennMac, I had to bring them home.  And today, after spending the day wandering around the the city's weekly enormous 10-block flea market, and the Dia del Patrimonio's open historic sites like the 19th century Club Uruguay (complete with gavotte,) we picked up some bacon at the Disco (Supermarket) and started shucking the beans.  It does take a lot to produce about a cup of those adorable little green kidneys.


Recipe -serves 4:
2 lbs. unshucked fava beans (about 2 cups of beans)
1/2 lb. sliced bacon, cut in 1" pieces.
1 onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1/2 cp. tomato puree
2 tomatoes (Roma if possible) chopped
1/2 cp. dry white wine
salt and pepper

Saute the bacon pieces in a largish saucepan until crisp, crumble or chop, and set aside.  Pour out all the bacon fat except for 2 TB., add a few more TB of olive oil, and sauté the onion for 15 minutes over low heat until soft.  Add the garlic, then the tomatoes and tomato puree, and keep simmering for 5 more minutes.  Now add the wine and another 1/2 cup of water, and simmer for another 10 or so minutes, until the tomatoes have broken up and it all takes on a sauce-like consistency.  Add the habas and the bacon - and if the liquid has boiled away, and the habas aren't covered, you should add a little water until they are - and bring to a simmer again, and keep it going for another 10 minutes until the habas are tender.  Season with a good amount of salt and pepper.

To go along, I made a simple onion risotto (a million recipes abound, and I'll put one in later also), because I was in the mood for a somewhat soupy dinner, and that was easy to do on the stove at the same time - sautéing onions and stirring for this too - and the habas are basically Italian anyway.  They go together like the partners above, tastefully.