Aye! Pod Soup Beano

Broad Bean Pod Soup

Continuing with the ‘waste not, want not’ theme, we shall now make one of my favourite soups. Aw shucks! A little research shows that bean casings are not what I call them, hence the name in the title. I have found scant evidence that this soup is a pan-island staple, perhaps because the ingredients are quickly consumed cooked and eaten in the same way they eat cabbage or horta. That is hot or cold and lined up for a swimming lesson in a sea of lemon juice or sometimes vinegar. Unlike the Cretans, I don’t have a huge appetite for an excess of lemon or salt, but I do love to shower pepper onto hot horta or similar boiled vegetables.

I hated broad beans as a kid; maybe they were too big or too old, but they had what I remember as a bitter iodine taste. Nowadays, I love broad beans, what the Greeks call κουκιά (pronounced koocha in Crete) but preferably a little ‘narrower’ in their immaturity – their youth, their tenderness, their sweetness. Before you liberate the beans from their pods or shucks, consider what you are missing by just discarding the pods because, apart from other things, they make a sooouperb and tasty soup. Don’t make the mistake I made the first time I tried to salvage the pods. Do not remove the beans first or you make life hard for yourself and why do that when others do it all the time?

First thing you must do, is remove the strings that run down both edges of the pod. It is best to do this with a sharp knife, but impatiently I used a potato-peeling gadget, which takes the strings and a fair old chunk of pod too. The de-stringing must be done conscientiously otherwise you’ll be fishing out bits of pod ‘string’ from your teeth when you consume your soup...I hate that! Why don’t you just sieve it, I hear you cry? Go on then have it your way, plus you’ll have a sieve to wash-up too.

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Uppermost are the broad bean pods prepared and ready. In the middle are the beans awaiting their fate. Lower are the strings for discarding

INGREDIENTS

• 1kg broad bean pods (prepared as above) and chopped small
• 2tbsp olive oil
• 1 small onion, roughly chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped
• 1 large potato, diced
• 1.5 litre chicken or vegetable stock
• 1 large sprig of rosemary (or 1tsp dried)
• Freshly ground black pepper & salt

METHOD

1. Heat the oil in a large saucepan over a medium heat and fry the onion and garlic for 5 minutes until softened and translucent.
2. Add the potato and fry for a further two or three minutes.
3. Add in the bean pods, then pour in the stock.
4. Add the rosemary and season. Cover with a lid, simmer for 25 minutes or until the potatoes and pods are tender.
5. Use a handheld blender or liquidiser to blend the contents to a smooth soup.
6. Do not forget that in the same way you may add pepper and salt to season, you may wish to add other things to give a balanced taste across your tongue-experiment. Why don't you try this delicious broad bean pod soup

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