Gifts to Self

A surprising and dead easy flavour hack; some very good meatballs, delicious ways with fava beans and a bunch of flowers.

The lilacs have bloomed and it seems the whole city is heady with their scent. We have a thick row of plants on our street and it is well known that they are fair game for anyone who lives in the neighborhood. I picked a large bunch for my dining table and the entire house is fragrant. These are the moments to live for, when your senses are alive, and you can’t imagine how anything so wonderful came into existence. More and more I realize we must be diligent about giving ourselves these kinds of gifts…the ones that are simple (and often free) and make life feel wonderful or in the least a little more pleasant, if only for a moment.

An unexpected gift to myself this week came in the form of a tray of roasted onions. I am not kidding! In case you missed last week’s newsletter, I have been cooking with nothing but a a toaster oven, now for 2 weeks. For the most part it is completely fine, but it is slow if I want to make anything with a base of sautéed vegetables. I set out yesterday to make a tray of lentils cooked with bacon, but found myself on an unexpected detour that ended in the most delicious meatballs and braised fava (broad) beans. (Another gift, as a side note, was to give myself a whole day, alone, in the kitchen with no real agenda. This is my favourite way to be in the kitchen, in fact it is one of my favourite ways to be full stop, so it was a real treat!)

The onions were were so simple and easy but a revelation. I have made large batches of slowly cooked onions in professional kitchens but I never bothered to do it at home. I had also never done it in an oven (or toaster oven) but this made it even easier and I am sure more delicious. Essentially it is just a batch of slow cooked, diced onion, nothing too crazy. But because they are cooked so slowly with a good amount of olive oil, they become soft and sweet and make a perfect base for almost anything. If you have a batch of these, you can throw together an incredibly flavorful meal with the most minimal effort. And delicious, homemade food coming together with minimal effort is a real gift to me.

With yesterday’s onions I made beef kofta baked in tomato sauce and fava beans (broad beans), which I made the way I learned from Sevtap Yuce when I worked at Beachwood Cafe in Yamba (NSW, Australia). The beauty of this fava recipe is that it is both very simple and fairly neutral meaning that any leftovers can be re-worked into another dish. I stirred some though a bowl of hot rice with a squeeze of lemon, some dill and a good crumble of feta and the rest were tossed with steamed potatoes and chopped crispy bacon, a small handful of mint, a squeeze of lemon and plenty of black pepper. Dishes that become dishes that become dishes…

Start With a Tray of Onion

Scale this recipe up as much as you like. It would be very handy to have containers of this in the freezer for any time you want the flavour of having spent lots of time in the kitchen but don’t have the actual time.

3 onions

about 1/2c olive oil

Salt

• Preheat oven to 350*F/180C

• Finely dice onions and place in a baking tray with olive oil and salt. They should fit snuggly in the pan, not be spread out- the idea is they soften and become tender not crispy.

• Bake until onions are soft and translucent but not yet browning, about 40 minutes. Stir occasionally and lower the heat a little if necessary if they are cooking too fast.

• Store for up to a week in the fridge or freeze.

Gently Spiced Meatballs with Tomato Sauce

1/2 batch of above onions

1/2 can crushed tomatoes (best you can find, I like Bianco)

1 lb ground beef

1 tsp each ground: cumin, Corriander, allspice

1 tsp salt

1 very finely chopped red onion

Plenty of salt

Drizzle of olive oil

• Preheat oven to 350F/180C

• In a roasting or casserole dish, combine the tomatoes and onion mix and season well with salt. Taste and adjust seasoning.

• In a separate bowl mix together the beef, onion, spices and salt until thoroughly combined and then roll into golf ball size balls. Place in the tray in the tomato sauce. Drizzle the tops of the meatballs with a little olive oil and sprinkle all over with a small pinch of salt.

• Place in the oven for 15 minutes or until just cooked through.

• Note: depending on the beef you use, you may end up with rather a lot of oil on top. It is all excellent flavour, but if it’s a bit much for you, just skim some off before serving.

  To serve:

  Serve with crusty bread or rice. A dollop of garlic yoghurt (below) is a very nice addition as are a few chopped herbs such as mint, dill, parsley or cilantro. Perfect as part of a meal that includes lots of little salad-y bits and pieces.

Braised Fava Beans

1/2 batch onions above

about 3 cups of peeled broad beans (see note below)

salt

• You can do this in a large pan with a lid or in a tray covered in foil, the important thing is that it is covered because the beans are really just being steamed with the onion and oil. Combine the favas and onions in your chosen vessel (make sure to include all the delicious oil) and season well with salt. Cover the pan and cook over low-medium heat for about 15 minutes, until the beans are soft but still quite bright green, be sure they don’t catch on the bottom, give the pan a little shake every now and then if you are cooking them on the stove and turn down the heat if needed.

  Note on fava/broad beans:

  Fava beans grown fast and furious when they get going and grow well in Michigan, though admittedly the only place I really see them for sale in any great volume is Tantre Farm at the Kerrytown Market in Ann Arbor. The season usually begins in June, they early beans are definitely better than the later ones as they tend to get a but starchy as they get bigger and older.

  Cooking fresh favas is a labour of love as they require being peeled twice. They come in a large pod, like a giant edamame. The first peel is to remove the beans from inside the large pod. From here you must blanch the beans in a pot of boiling water for a couple of minutes to loosen the skin surrounding the edible part of the bean. Now you can slip the skins off the little beans to reveal the precious bright green gem inside. You will need about 4-5 lbs of fava pods to yield 3 cups of beans.

  A little trick I learned from my time at Beachwood is that frozen favas are fairly acceptable and have the added bonus of taking much less time to prepare. Frozen favas only require a single shuck (the large pod has already been removed) and do not need to be blanched before peeling. If you live in Detroit, Honeybee sells frozen favas. They are not the best in world, but they hit the spot when a craving calls.

  I definitely think it is worth getting fresh favas when they are in season. The peeling may be a little arduous but it is one of those perfect social kitchen tasks. Sit in the sun, with a glass of wine if you like, and a couple of friends and peel beans. Pure joy!

  

Fava Beans with Garlic Yogurt and Dill

This is how the beans are served at Beachwood, though I put a lot more dill on mine because I love it so. A little lemon zest is a nice addition too.

1 cup of yogurt

1 clove of garlic

a good pinch of salt

a handful of dill

Good olive oil

• Mash the garlic to a pulp w a good pinch of salt using a mortar and pestle (alternately finely grate on a microplane) and mix through the yoghurt. Taste and add more salt to taste- it should be a little salty.

• Serve beans in a bowl topped with a dollop of yogurt, a sprinkle of dill and a drizzle of good olive oil. Enjoy with crusty bread.

Fava Bean, Potato and Bacon Salad