Habas con Hinojo

Name: Habas con Hinojo
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 45 min
Total time: 1 h 5 min
Yield: 4
Cuisine: Andalusia & Southern Spain
Ingredients: 1.2 kg young broad beans in the pod, or 500g podded; 120 g wild fennel fronds and tender stems, chopped, or the fronds of 3 bulbs plus dill; 1 whole head garlic, cloves peeled and sliced; 1 onion, finely chopped; 120 ml extra virgin olive oil; 1 tsp sweet pimentón; 1 bay leaf; 300 ml water; 1.5 tsp salt, or to taste; 1 tbsp sherry vinegar; 4 eggs, to fry and set on top (optional); 4 thick slices country bread, to serve

Andalusian broad beans stewed with wild fennel, garlic and olive oil: three ingredients, one season, and nothing else in the pot

Origin: Seville, Andalusia & Southern Spain

From the journey of Fennel.

This is spring food and it lasts about six weeks. Young broad beans, small enough that the pods are still tender and the skins have not toughened, are stewed slowly with wild fennel gathered from the roadsides, a good deal of garlic, and enough olive oil that the whole thing is halfway to being confit. There is nothing else in it. When the beans get older the dish stops being made and the cook waits a year. Hinojo grows across Andalusia unattended and is gathered rather than bought, which puts this dish in the same bracket as Cretan marathopita and Sicilian pasta con le sarde: the whole northern shore of the Mediterranean uses the same wild plant in the same season and arrived at that independently, or nearly so. Andalusia's version is the plainest of the three. The Arab centuries left their mark on it, as on most of the region's cooking. Broad beans and fennel are both older than that, but the habit of cooking beans slowly in oil with aromatics rather than boiling them in water is Andalusi practice, and the same technique produces the chickpea and spinach dishes of Seville and the potajes of Holy Week. Fennel also went into the Moorish sweets, which is why it turns up in pan de higo, the pressed fig cake, and in the caper brines of Murcia. In Andalusia it is eaten with bread as a tapa, often with a fried egg broken over it, and in the countryside it is a main course. A dish of three ingredients has nowhere to hide, so the oil should be one worth tasting.

Ingredients

Beans

1.2 kg young broad beans in the pod, or 500g podded

Fennel

120 g wild fennel fronds and tender stems, chopped, or the fronds of 3 bulbs plus dill

Aromatics

1 whole head garlic, cloves peeled and sliced
1 onion, finely chopped

To cook

120 ml extra virgin olive oil
300 ml water

Seasoning

1 tsp sweet pimentón
1 bay leaf
1.5 tsp salt, or to taste

To finish

1 tbsp sherry vinegar

To serve

4 eggs, to fry and set on top (optional)
4 thick slices country bread, to serve

Method

If the beans are genuinely young and the pods still soft and bright, top and tail them and cut the whole pods into 3cm lengths, which is the traditional Andalusian way and the better one.
If the pods have started to toughen or show any grey, pod the beans and discard the shells.
Warm the olive oil in a wide heavy pan over a low heat and soften the onion and garlic for ten minutes without letting them colour.
This is a slow oily stew rather than a fry, so keep the heat low throughout and do not rush the aromatics.
Stir in the pimentón off the heat for a few seconds so it does not burn, then return the pan to the heat.
Add the beans, the bay leaf, and about half the fennel, and turn everything through the oil.
Pour in the water, add the salt, cover, and simmer very gently for thirty to thirty-five minutes.
The beans are ready when they are entirely soft and beginning to collapse. Andalusian broad beans are cooked well past the bright green stage, and a firm bean here is an undercooked one.
Add the remaining fennel and cook uncovered for a final five minutes, so half the herb is cooked into the dish and half stays fresh.
Take the pan off the heat, stir in the sherry vinegar, and let it stand for ten minutes; it improves noticeably as it sits.
Serve warm rather than hot, with bread, and with a fried egg broken over the top if you want a meal rather than a tapa.

Notes

The season is the whole thing: this wants the first young broad beans of spring, when the pods can be eaten whole. Past that point pod them, and past that point again make something else. Wild fennel is the correct herb and the fronds from bought bulbs plus a bunch of dill are the practical substitute. Use good olive oil and plenty of it, since a three-ingredient dish rests on it entirely. Cook the beans well beyond the bright green stage; this is not a dish that prizes crunch. It is better after an hour's standing and better again the next day.

The Gastrographer

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Journey Point Map Key

Ingredient originTrade or transit route

Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control