I'm just starting my first attempt at growing broad beans. The seeds are chitting now, so it's early days, I hope to have them in the ground as soon as I see roots forming. No idea if I will succeed, they are rumored to be difficult to grow here.
I am looking for advice on preparation and serving of any broad beans I produce. So far, I've read some advice on "unzipping" and shelling the pods, popping the shelled beans into boiling salt water for anywhere from 1 to 5 minutes (depending on what you want to do with them), then chilling in ice water. I hope at least some of that is correct advice(?) I know that some advise peeling the skins off after the ice water, while others consider the skinning to be one of the deadly sins.
Beyond that, what is a good way to season and serve them? Do they work as a good legume to add to a salad? Is the best preparation a simple butter, salt and pepper? Or is there a soup, stew, or etc. that they work well in?
Due to a medical condition, red (i.e., mammal) meat is out for me, but I can easily substitute smoked turkey for ham in most recipes. I plan to save any recommendations in my family recipe book. I'm no master chef, but can usually work my way through most recipes.
I also have read that they can be be used green, somewhat like french beans. Any advice in that direction would also be appreciated (our weather is variable, it would be good to have a fallback plan in case I only get immature beans before our first killing freeze).
Thank you!
