The Last Of The Broad Beans & Another Minty Dip Recipe

This past weekend was rather hectic in our “huerta”. We’ve been cultivating the land (labrando), spraying things (all eco products obviously, more on that another day), tying plants to their canes, harvesting the first cucumbers (pepinos) and God knows how many courgettes. We read not long ago that the courgette plant will produce approximately 10 courgettes, what they forgot to say was per week!

But we’ve also had to say cheerio to a few plants, mainly the broad beans (habas). They’ve lasted a long time this year thanks to the rain and the cooler weather but I’m afraid their time was up. We plant the beans from seed (semilla), either our own that we grew the previous year or organic ones we buy from online eco stores. They were sowed directly in the ground, along with the peas (guisantes) in January after leaving them to soak in water overnight. We had 4 rows of them, one of the rows would solely be grown for seed for sowing the following year. We rarely watered them due to the wet weather but if there’s a bit of a drought they would need watering occasionally. The first ones were harvested at the beginning of April and the last we picked Sunday evening just before the plants got cut down and the roots were rotavated into the earth.

Lots of the broad beans we harvest end up in the freezer, it would be impossible to eat them all when they are fresh and that way we have them on hand whenever we feel the need for a few. Pep often cooks broad bean stew, his signature dish which is basically loads of broad beans with whatever veggies we have at the time and always potatoes. It’s delicious but not really suitable for this weather, maybe I’ll do a post on it in the winter months if he’ll let me! Another way we like to cook them is leaving them in their pods and cooking them on the “brasa”, the embers in our wood burning stove, then trying not to burn our fingers, we open them and eat the tender beans, but again, not really suitable for this time of year!!

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So, it was time to collect the remaining broad beans before we cut down the plants. These dead plants get used to put round our other veggie plants to keep as much humidity in the earth as poss, now it’s starting to warm up the earth dries out rather rapidly. There were more broad beans left on the plants than I imagined there would be, the trouble was they’d been left too long before picking and the skin on the broad bean can get quite tough when this happens. Not to fear, I have the perfect summery recipe to use them up. Tougher broad beans have a more dense consistency with less water content and are perfect in recipes like this

Once they’ve been separated I boil the tougher broad beans until they are cooked through, when you push a fork in and it goes in easily they’re done (but I’m sure you know that anyway!) Then drain and rinse with cold water. Once they’ve cooled enough to handle them I start with the more time-consuming part, removing the skins. This doesn’t have to be done if you’re using tender broad beans, although you can do if you want but it’s not necessary. I’ve made this with tender broad beans and I haven’t removed the skins. The dip is still very tasty but the texture isn’t quite as thick and is a bit chunkier.

It actually doesn’t take that long to skin them, they pop out very easily and I did about 500g in approximately 10 minutes. Once the skins are removed I chuck them in the food processor along with the lemon juice, olive oil, spearmint and salt and whizz them together for about 2 minutes, scraping the sides down a couple of times so everything gets mixed in well.

The result is a deliciously thick, tangy, minty, creamy dip that I can’t resist. It’s my favourite dip out of all the ones I do. It’s incredibly moreish and I always seem to spread it on far too thick (and I’m not exaggerating!!) But I don’t care. It’s perfect as a dip for new potatoes or whatever takes your fancy. I know the previous dip recipe I shared was also a minty one but I’ve been dying to post the recipe for this one, it really is scrumptious and perfect for the summer.

You don’t have to do this amount, you can halve the recipe if you think it would be too much. It doesn’t last long in our house though! Also, the lemon juice and mint can be altered to your taste, I’ve found that these amounts are about right for us. It also depends on your lemon, some have lots more juice than others so I’ll let you play around with it. If you find it needs more zing, just add a bit more juice. The same with the mint.

Well I hope you give it a go. If you do, please let me know how it turns out. As always, any questions or suggestions or anything else that you can think of, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us, we’ll be pleased to hear from you. Thanks for reading. See you very shortly. Love Georgie and Pep xxx

Broad Bean And Mint Dip

A delicious, thick, tangy dip perfect for the summer

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Prep Time 15 minutes mins

Cook Time 15 minutes mins

Course Appetizer

Cuisine Gluten free, Vegan

Ingredients

  

• 450 grams broad beans if peeled, weight after peeling
• Juice of 1 large lemon
• 30-35 mint leaves (spearmint, not peppermint)
• 10 tbsp olive oil approximately
• salt to taste

Instructions

 

• Cook the broad beans until tender. Drain and rinse with cold water. If the skins on the beans are tough, pop them out of their skins
• Place in the food processor with all the other ingredients and process until smooth, around 2 minutes, scraping down the sides as necessary.
• Transfer to an airtight container and cool completely in the fridge until ready to serve.