Last week, we had a terrific meal at Picán Restaurant in Oakland. One of the highlights was a seasonal tomato and peach panzanella (bread salad). I did my level best to re-create it at home and it made for a hearty, simple, summery side dish. Of course, the one at Picán had bacon in it, so that’s always an option…

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I know this has gone around in the past, but I don’t care. I can’t stop watching it. This is the BEST BREAD-MAKING VIDEO EVER, hands down. I mean, it doesn’t teach you how to make bread or anything- it’s just an 80s dude in a sweatband/wifebeater combo, dancing around, doing splits in the air and gyrating his pelvis most hilariously while sort of pretending to make bread. Look out for the part where he puts a pitcher of water on his head and does a pirouette. Just, WOW.

[via Serious Eats]

I first fell in love with fava beans while cooking at Rose Pistola, where I had some inkling of how they were prepared but never actually had to DO it myself- since there was always a prep cook ready to take my gigantic bag of dirty old pods into the back room and return a couple of hours later with a little container of gorgeous, glistening prepared fava beans.

They are not my favorite thing to prepare myself, sans eager-beaver prep cook guy, because they need to be shelled not once, but twice, which is pretty annoying and time-consuming. Also, you have to buy a rather large amount in order for them to yield a relatively meager pile of usable end-product.

However, I tend to forget these facts from year to year. So about once every spring, I see them in some market stall and buy them, and then I end up taking them home and fooling around with them for hours and hours and making something that is annoyingly DELICIOUS. Why annoyingly? Because if they weren’t delicious then I’d never be tempted to mess with them, I’d just leave them for some other poor sucker.

first shelling: so many pods, so few beans to show for it.

second shelling: yet another big pile of detritus for an ever-shrinking pile of beans.

This item was inspired by the yummy appetizer I ate recently at Beretta, but I didn’t see the need to cover it with oil and cheese as they did. It is maddeningly, disgustingly, irritatingly tasty and fresh and wonderful as it is and I wish I could make and eat it about once a week, but that just isn’t going to happen. Unless, of course, I stop working and devote more time to cooking each day, or until the glorious day that I’m wealthy enough to employ a cadre of servants in my home. So, yeah, probably never.

Fava Bean Bruschetta
this will make enough appetizers for 6-8 people.

Ingredients:

• about 1 lb. fava beans, in their pods
• 1/2 cup spinach leaves
• 1/4 cup packed mint leaves
• zest and juice of 1 lemon
• 1 clove crushed garlic
• 1/2 cup grated parmesan
• olive oil to taste/texture- probably about 1/3 cup
• salt to taste (about 1 tsp.)
• 16 slices good quality fresh baguette, about 1/2 inch thick

Method:

• Remove fava beans from pods and discard pods. Boil a pot of salted water and cook the beans about 2-3  minutes. Strain and pour cold water over them until they are warm. Squeeze beans until insides pop out and discard shells.
• Combine beans, spinach, mint, lemon, garlic, parmesan, and salt in a food processor and pulse to combine and chop. Add oil, about 1 Tblps at a time, until mixture is thick but spreadable. Adjust salt and oil as needed.
• Heat broiler of oven. Arrange bread on a pan and toast lightly on both sides.
• Remove bread from oven and spread a thick layer of fava bean paste on bread. Serve immediately.
• If you have leftover paste, you can thin it out with cream or olive oil and toss it with pasta.