Foole m'damas (Braised Dried Fava beans)

[Curlz]

My dad just called to ask if I would help him find this...all of the links I'm finding just mention the dish, but I can't find a recipe.

Any/all help is greatly appreciated! Thanks.

Curlz

[FoodMan]

Of course you can buy the canned version and dress it up, but if you have access to a middle eastern store try the real thing, it is simple.

Buy dried fool (fava beans), the small kind no bigger than a marble and has a brown skin. Ask someone who works at the store and they should be able to help.

Soak the beans overnight. This is breakfast food so in the morning boil them in lots of water till tender and cooked through and ALMOST mushy (I actually like to mush some up, but leave most whole) . Drain them and now the dish is ready to go. Dress the beans heavily with good olive oil, and salt and pepper to taste as well as some mashed garlic, lemon juice and if you like a pinch of cumin and fresh minced parsley. This is it. Serve it very warm.

Of course what makes this dish are the accompaniments. Here are the traditional ones:

-olives

-fresh mint leaves

-pickled turnips

-pickled cucumbers

-fresh or pickled chilies

-raw sweet onions

Eat with fresh warm pita bread and small glasses of hot sweet tea!

[Curlz]

Thanks SO much, Food Man! So basically, it's hummus made with fava beans, right? Sure sounds like it...

Thanks again!

Evie

[Curlz]

Btw, can this be made with canned favas?

[FoodMan]

Thanks SO much, Food Man!  So basically, it's hummus made with fava beans, right?  Sure sounds like it... 

Thanks again! 

Evie

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Well, not really. Hummus has tahini in it and is a dip with no whole beans. This one is a bean dish, with whole fava beans. Although, to your point, most "Fool" joints in Lebanon serve both dishes for breakfast. So, you would ask for "Fool Wa Hummus" and get two dishes with tons of garnishes.

BTW, if the mixture is a little on the dry side, add some of the cooking water to the dressing to get it noce an loose.

Let us know how it turns out.

[FoodMan]

Btw, can this be made with canned favas?

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Like I mentioned you could use canned. The Lebanese brand CORTAS makes pretty good "Foul Medammas", your middle eastern grocery store should have it. With this one it is already cooked and ready to be heated and dressed.

Here is a website that sells the Cortas brand. Scroll to the middle of the page to see the Foul Medammas.

[Curlz]

Thanks again, Elie--this is all VERY helpful. I didn't realize that the beans remained whole until you made that clarification. Sure sounds yummy!

[nessa]

I had a dish yesterday that might have been fool Medemas <sp>.

I forget what the menu said, but it just might have been the best thing to cross my lips all year. It was the small fava beans in a sauce that the owner said was a tahini-lemon sauce with a bit of yogurt. If I had not been in polite company, I might have licked the bowl. I'm going to be attempting to recreate it sometime after the holidaze. Anyone have any ideas regarding the proportions of the ingredients in the sauce?

[JasonTrue]

I learned a few years ago from an Egyptian colleague to make a more dip-like foul... it is also apparently breakfast food, but bears little resemblance to the version I've had in Lebanese restaurants.

I recall hers having a bit of a greenish hue, perhaps because of the color of the small fava beans she used, but mine looked like this when it was done:

It's made with some caramelized onions and has a slightly sweet taste.

It was really good with fresh-from-the-oven pita.

Blog Entry on Egyptian-ish Foul

[joiei]

Elie, thanks for the recipe, I by chance picked up some just last week at Kabani's Market here in Tulsa. Can I serve this as a dish on my holiday buffet for New Years?

When I bought them, I had no idea what I was going to do with them, it was something new. Now I know.

My supply of Mezza peppers didn't last long at all this year by the way.

[Rebecca263]

I love these beans for breakfast, I always float olive oil on top and chop mint or parsley on it. It's actually good with cinnamon, too. Or a touch of allspice. Or some Z'atar. Or, some lemon and garlic. Or, leb'an, or yogurt. Plus, hot pita. Or, well, you can see. It's pretty much delicious. And, don't be intimidated by dried beans, they're super easy and so much better than the canned ones in this bowl of heaven. I'm an idje head and I can make the dried beans. By the way, fool are delicious stuffed into a lamb breast, too. I like the fatter ones for that.

[FoodMan]

Elie, thanks for the recipe,  I by chance picked up some just last week at Kabani's Market here in Tulsa.  Can I serve this as a dish on my holiday buffet for New Years? 

When I bought them, I had no idea what I was going to do with them, it was something new.  Now I know. 

My supply of Mezza peppers didn't last long at all this year by the way.

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Sure, why not? They make a great mezza contributor.

[sazji]

Can someone clarify this -- are the dried beans used for foul m'damas with or without the skins? I seem to remember Claudia Roden writing about eating them as a kid, the skins popping... but as far as I've seen, the skins are so tough, even after boiling, that you wouldn't want to eat them.

The dried hulled ones we make into a sort of dip - boil a half pound of them with a couple chopped onions, simmer slowly till they are completely broken down, in sufficient water to make a medium-thick past. Add salt to taste, then pour into a deep dish and refrigerate. It sets up. Cut into squares, put on a plate, top with freshly chopped onion, olive oil and lemon, and finish off with lots of chopped dill. People either love it or hate it. It's called "fava," as far as I know the only use of that word in Turkish (the beans themselves are called bakla). In Greece they also call it fava but they make it with yellow split peas, departing even further from anything fava-related. Some friends also do it with green split peas; it's quite good.

[FoodMan]

yeap, the skin is on and it is a little tough, but not inedible.