Ingredients for Olive Oil Braised Shelled Fava Beans (Zeytinyağlı İç Bakla)
- 500 g (about 1 lb) shelled fava beans
- 1 onion
- Half a tea glass (about 50 ml / 3 tbsp) vegetable oil
- Half a tea glass (about 50 ml / 3 tbsp) olive oil
- Juice of half a lemon
- 1 handful of dill
How to Make Olive Oil Braised Shelled Fava Beans (Zeytinyağlı İç Bakla)
Rinse 500 g (about 1 lb) of shelled fava beans and place them in a pot. Cover with water and boil until tender. Once boiled, peel off the outer skins.
In a pot, sauté 1 finely diced onion in half a tea glass (about 50 ml / 3 tbsp) of vegetable oil and half a tea glass of olive oil. Add the boiled fava beans and stir briefly. Squeeze in half a lemon, add just enough water to barely cover, and cook through. Before removing from the heat, chop 1 handful of dill and stir it in. (Since the beans were already boiled, be careful not to overcook them.)
About This Recipe
The domestication of the wild olive oleaster through grafting and its transformation into the cultivated variety sativa is believed to have first taken place around 4000 BC in Anatolia, the Eastern Mediterranean, and Southern Western Asia — that is, along the Mediterranean coastline stretching from present-day Adana and Gaziantep through Syria, Lebanon, and Israel. This remarkable achievement is widely attributed to the Semitic peoples.
According to many traditions stretching from ancient times to the present day, olive trees were given as gifts at weddings and circumcision ceremonies and passed down from generation to generation. Even if a field was inherited by someone else, no one could touch the olive trees within it — only the person to whom the trees had been gifted could benefit from them.
The only bird that naturally propagates olive trees in the wild is the Common Blackbird (Turdus merula), a small black bird. When we spit olive pits into the soil, no olive tree can grow from them. Olive pits have a woody structure. Blackbirds, which are very fond of olive fruit, swallow the olives whole and digest the fleshy part in their crop. Unable to digest the woody pit, they pass it out through their droppings. Only after passing through a blackbird's crop can an olive pit germinate when it falls to the ground.
Olive Oil Fava Beans lovers, are you here? Today's recipe is a little different but just as incredibly delicious — welcome to the kitchen for our Olive Oil Braised Fava Beans (Zeytinyağlı İç Bakla) recipe. Enjoy the cooking…
