Monday 11 June 2012

Moroccan Style Broad Bean Salad with Yoghurt and Crunchy Bits


From Jamie’s Dinners, Jamie Oliver, Penguin Books, 2006.

The first thing I did to make the salad was to prepare the crunchy bits. This was done by frying a chopped red onion, a few cumin seeds and a large pinch of dried chilli until they were nicely softened. Breadcrumbs were then added and fried until they had crisped up. The mix was then seasoned and it was ready.



It was then time to prepare the broad beans. I do like broad beans and I usually enjoy the time spent on popping them out of their tough skins. They were dropped into boiling salted water for a couple of minutes, then taken out and, when cool enough, popped out of their skins. They beans were then salted to taste and tossed into a bowl where they were dressed with lemon juice and extra virgin olive oil. A little chopped mint was added.



To serve, the beans had a few more mint leaves added to them. They were tossed again and placed on the plate over a dollop of yoghurt. The crunchy bits were then spooned over.

The salad worked well. I especially enjoyed the crunchy bits; they were spicy with a little heat from the chilli combined with the sweetness of the red onion. And broad beans are always good.

I do wish Jamie Oliver would set out his work with a little more consideration for the person following the recipe. He generally includes little bits of other information within the recipe so that you have to read through all of this as you try to find the instruction bits. The extra information is often quite interesting but I would prefer to have it separated from the instructional side—perhaps over the name of the recipe as an introduction the way many other recipe writers do.

Taste: ✔✔✔✔
Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔✔

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