Beans on Toast

The other day, while Jamie Oliver was prancing around the French Pyrenees on TV, whipping up truffle omelets and shooting wild boar with the village blokes, I was inspired to prance around and whip up my own straight-from-the-garden snack. Fava bean hummus on toast. (OK, broad bean hummus on on toast, but you tell me which one you're going to eat. The Italians know how to name their beans, and I'm Italian about this one.)

I do love how the celebrity chefs waft around, doing the markets, finding themselves in unspeakably romantic kitchens with roaring fires and rustic chopping blocks, the freshest produce at their fingertips. Sometimes when I'm watching them I'm mesmerised and enchanted. Other times I'm jealous as hell to the point of being enraged. But most often I'm watching them out one eye, scanning the cook book shelf out the other, gradually losing interest in TV, and itching to get into the kitchen. For all the hype and smoke and mirrors, food TV inspires me.

So I left Jamie to his truffle snuffling, and went hunting in my own garden, imaginary TV crew in tow, zooming into the undergrowth and capturing my rapture when I discovered the fava beans were just right to pick.

I've been experimenting with planting seeds in winter, which always feels wrong, but always (so far anyway) gives me a lovely crop in spring. This is something our grandparents were all over, planting the rights seeds at the right time so there was always a crop of something to eat. So far I've just been doing this with fava beans and sweet peas. It works. I'll do another post on seasonal seed planting, as it's a whole other story.

Back to my TV show about fava bean hummus on toast.

Take the beans out of their pods. You can leave their pleather coats on. I recommend doing this in a sunny spot in a really comfortable chair.

Steam them for 5 minutes. Put a clove of garlic in with them while they steam. This just softens and sweetens the garlic so the hummus isn't too sharp.

Pulverise the beans, garlic, a wee sprinkle of salt, a squirt of lemon juice and a good dollop of olive oil. You can do this in a food processor, a mincer, or with a mortar and pestle.

Taste it and add extra salt or lemon if you like. If it's too dry, add some more olive oil. And if it's too wet? Well, I guess just serve it as a dip rather than a spread.

Pile on hot buttered toast and devour.

On the off chance you didn't plant fava beans over the winter... try making a spread like this with peas, or carrots or kumara. You could make it with canned beans (no need to steam), or frozen peas even. Just think cooked or soft vege + garlic, lemon, salt, olive oil + crushing implement. As Nigella would say, "How easy is that?"

And just so this page doesn't look too green, here's what grew out of my other winter seed planting. The sweet peas are totally stunning. Every time I walk out the back door their smell stops me in my tracks.

Do I want my own food TV show? Yes, of course. But no. That dish took no more than 20 minutes from idea to the first bite. If the TV crew was real, it would have taken all day, and I'd be frazzled. And I'd probably even have to wear makeup, which just wouldn't do. So for now I'll  remain a celebrity in my own mind. I do have a swish new phone with a swish video camera though, so it's very tempting to see what might happen if I figured out how to use it.