The Best Broad Bean Salad

Guest post by Kim Brill

Hello foodies,

I hope spring continues to put a lift in your step and a smile on your dial.

Every time I write I seem to be out of sync with the seasons. Last time I was wittering on about not being able to let go of winter cooking as it gets warmer and now I am going to give you a beautiful spring salad recipe as I type listening to the pouring rain. I hope when you are reading this the sun is shining.

So…onto the important stuff…this recipe is thanks to Jamie Oliver and will be your emergency ‘help, I need to make an interesting salad to take to a BBQ and don’t know what to make’ salad. Please may I ask that if we are going to the same BBQ that you don’t make this, as I most certainly will be. To bring the same salad to a party would be more upsetting than arriving and seeing someone else wearing the same dress as you, but wearing it better. Deal? Thanks.

The joy of this recipe is that you can change the ingredients around to suit what you like/have handy and it will still taste great (assuming you like broad beans, if you don’t you might like to skip over to the next article!).

Many of the ingredients in this recipe can be sourced from my one-stop-favourite, organic wholefoods online store, The Wholefood Collective. They go to great lengths to ensure everything they source is amazing quality, they stock all my favorite products and I don’t even have to leave the house! Oh and the cherry on the cake is they donate profits to improve food security for vulnerable Aussies.

The Best Broad Bean Salad

Ingredients

2-3 handfuls of shelled broad beans
1 small handful of pecorino roughly chopped or grated (or a beautiful Persian feta)
Finely grated zest and juice of 1 lemon
1 splash of extra virgin olive oil
1 handful of fresh mint
Sea salt
75 g of quality Spanish ham such as pata negra roughly torn (or use chicken/toasted pumpkin seeds)

Method

Separate the broad beans into 2 piles – big and small. Drop the big ones into boiling water for 1 minute and then put them aside to cool down. Pop them out of their shells when they’re cool enough to handle.

Roughly mash the blanched broad beans – you can do this with a food processor, chop them up with a knife or crush them in a pestle and mortar. Mix together with the small raw beans, the pecorino, lemon juice, oil and some of the mint, finely chopped.

Season to taste, then serve with the torn ham, a final zesting of lemon and the rest of the mint ripped up and scattered over the top.

Nice eh? Thanks Jamie!

Thank you to Kim Brill – mum of two, wife of one and fellow food lover who adopts a 70/30 rule to good health.