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Growing and Cooking Broad Beans

This year I got very excited about the prospect of growing broad beans. 
There were two aspects to this.  Frstly I like eating broad beans,  although I probably have never had them in any quantity and most of the broad beans I have used have been frozen which I always double pod.  Secondly I heard that they were good for returning carbon to the soil and so would make a positive addition to them compost once they had finished.

I planted the beans higgeldy piggeldy in spaces around my garden and then once they were up and growing I realised that they should have been in neat rows for staking.  Neat rows were formed by transplanting some and others were left to do their thing – whatever it ending up being….

My gardening is all trial and error and I really didn’t quite know what to expect.  I also hadn’t seen too many bees around the flowers although there are often bees in the borage which is in a different part of the garden.  I had to laugh at myself heading out with brown sugar and water in a spray bottle to spray over the foliage to encourage bees and realised I was way too late and it was completely unneccessary as the beans were already growing.

I now have beans galore – I didn’t realise that there would be so many!  Even the plants that I didn’t stake have grown relatively upright and are covered in beans.

Here on foodlovers we have recipes for

broad beans with asparagus and pasta
pasta con primizie
soupe au pistou

I know also that I can steam them and serve them as I would other vegetables.

But what else???  Broad bean ideas gratefully received!


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1– of 19 Responses comments (last comment added 4/01/09 at 9:14 p.m. ET)

  • hanorah
    June 24, 2010 at 9:26 pm

    When the Broadbeans have grown to the required height, you can pinch out the tops and cook in very little water absolutely delicious.

  • Gary Leech
    September 27, 2009 at 6:55 pm

    Where can I get frozen broadbeans already de-coated ie skinless? What manufacturer/supplier?

  • Jan Marie
    August 11, 2009 at 3:52 am

    Fiona, did you get sick on the raw broad beans? Last night I ate several mature raw broad beans from the garden and today I feel like I have the stomach flu. I found a website that says they contain a toxin that is inactivated by boiling for 10 min.

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