Fave e Cicoria
Puglia · primo · serves 4 · 90 min total · easy
Puglia's two-thousand-year-old dish — broad beans (the staple of antiquity) and bitter wild greens. Considered Italy's purest cucina povera.
Ingredients
- 300 g dried split broad beans (peeled)
- 1 medium potato
- 600 g wild chicory (or dandelion, escarole)
- 120 ml extra-virgin olive oil (the best you have)
- 1 clove garlic
- 1 chilli red chilli (optional)
- 1 tbsp salt
Method
- Soak fava beans 4 hours (or overnight if not pre-peeled).
- Drain. Put in a clay pot with potato cubes, cover with water by 2 cm, salt.
- Cook on the lowest heat 60 minutes — stirring occasionally — until the beans collapse into a coarse purée. Adjust water as needed.
- Off heat, beat with a wooden spoon until smooth and glossy. Stir in half the olive oil.
- Meanwhile boil chicory in salted water 5 minutes. Drain. Sauté in olive oil with a clove of crushed garlic and chilli, 4 minutes.
- Plate: a mound of bean purée, a tangle of chicory on top. Drizzle olive oil generously. Eat with bread.