My favourite in cold winter days is soup. A hearty soup. Yet this year I rarely had any, because the winter has been barely here. No proper snow, no proper cold. But I did remember to have soup finally last weekend.

 

 

I love herbs in general but I don’t like dill. So when my mother forced me to eat fresh fava beans with yogurt and topped with dill many many many years ago, I also hated fava beans. For years and years, I avoided all kinds of fava bean dishes. Only for the last few years I started to cook and eat it, without dill of course.

 

 

 

Thanks to the beans and rice, this soup is quite thick and very filling. One bowl of it is a full meal. It gets thicker as the time passes so when you want to eat the leftover soup, you will need to add water. How much you will add depends entirely on how thick you want your soup to be.

 

 

I think we gave up on a real winter for this year in Helsinki, though march can still bring some cold. We’ll see. It’s been a weird winter for sure. I’ve been living in Helsinki for 10 years and there was never a single winter which wasn’t cold or snowy. Pretty alarming times…
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Ingredients:

 

Difficulty: Easy
(serves 4-6)

 

Printable PDF-recipe (no photos)

 

2 tbsp olive oil
1 medium onion, diced
2 cloves of garlic, mashed
1 can (400 gr.) tomato puree
6.5 dl (or 2 3/4 cups or 400 gr.) fresh or frozen (shelled) fava beans*
1 lt. vegetable broth (or water)
2.5 dl + 2 tbsp (or 1 1/4 cups or 225 gr.) white rice, washed and drained
salt and pepper to taste

 

To serve, optional:
grated parmesan

 

*I used frozen shelled fava beans which didn’t have any skins. If your beans have skin, peel it off by putting the beans first separately in boiling water for about 3-4 minutes, rinse under cold water, finally peel off the skins.

 

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1. In a large pot, put olive oil on medium high heat and add onion. Sauté onion for about 3-4 minutes, until it becomes translucent.

 

 

 

 

2. Add garlic and tomato puree and continue to saute for a couple more minutes.

 

 

 

 

3. Add fava beans and vegetable broth and stir.

 

 

 

4. Add rice and stir. Cover the pot and let the soup boil.

 

 

 

 

5. When the soup starts boiling, add some salt and pepper and lower the heat. Cover the pot and let the soup simmer for about 20-25 minutes or until the beans cook completely. When the soup is cooked, taste and adjust seasoning. Serve with grated parmesan if you want. The soup will get thicker and thicker as time passes so if there is any leftover, just take from the pot as much as you want to eat into a small pan, add water to thin it (as much as you like) and heat it while stirring frequently. Enjoy!