My adventures with fava bean continues. And so does my adventure with Finnish language.

 

 

A few weeks ago I posted a fava bean soup recipe on the blog (find it here). In that blog post, I briefly explained my rather problematic relationship with fava beans, due to an unpleasant childhood experience involving dill.

 

 

 

So, as a continuation of exploring the flavour of fava beans, but also because I still have quite a large package of frozen fava beans, I decided to work on a dip recipe. Ironically, this recipe also contains dill and the addition of subtle dill flavour is not too bad.

 

 

There is no secret to this recipe. It’s one of those, “put all the ingredients in a food processor and make a smooth paste” recipes. The result is really good, both with bread and chips /crackers. I personally liked it better with chips though. In any case, enjoy!
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Ingredients:

 

Difficulty: Easy
(serves 8-10)

 

Printable PDF-recipe (no photos)

 

250 gr. frozen or fresh fava beans, cooked in boiling water until very tender*
8 garlic cloves, mashed
3 tbsp olive oil**
250 gr. ricotta
about 1.5 dl (or a little more than 1/2 cup) fresh dill
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

 

*I bought frozen fava beans without skins from Heinon Tukku market in Helsinki. If your fava beans have skins, you need to pop the beans out of the skins after boiling before making the dip.
**If you feel that the dip is too thick, you may add a bit more olive oil until you reach the desired consistency. Alternatively, you can add lighter flavoured vegetable oil to prevent overwhelming olive oil taste in the dip or you can add cold water. If you add any of these, add gradually, very little by little.

 

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1. Put cooked fava beans, mashed garlic, olive oil and ricotta in a food processor and process until it gets pretty smooth. After 3-4 minutes of processing (and scraping the sides in between if necessary), if you think that it’s too thick, add one of the things I mentioned above.

 

 

 

 

 

2. Add dill, salt and pepper and process again until you get your final consistency and taste.

 

 

 

 

3. I like this spread with a bit of texture left inside and not entirely smooth. But if you want to have a very smooth dip, continue to process adding more oil/water. Transfer the final dip to a serving bowl and top with some more fresh dill. Enjoy!