THE BOOYAH COOK: BROAD BEAN RISONI

Many years ago God created earth, humans, rocks, animals, houses and Google. When He put everything here, we were all the same. Then suddenly some people starting thinking for themselves. God said "Don't Eat The Apple" but Eve made Adam eat the apple. God cast them out of the Garden of Eden for being Vegetarians. Fast-forward to the year 2009 and like the rest of us, even God has chilled out and reconsidered some of his first ideas. Vegetarians live peacefully amongst us thinking up one thousand and one things to do with tofu. Sometimes as cooks, we have to come up with nice dishes that don't look they came out of some Earth Mother's armpit that both regular people and Vegetarians can all "break bread" with one another and feast at the same table. This is why today I am presenting in The Booyah Cook series "Minted Broad Bean Risoni" that can be an accompaniment to something like roast lamb or chicken [yum!] or on it's one in a smorgasbord of salads. Or if you are a student, have it just on it's own but substitute all the green stuff for broccoli and the risoni for rice as per usual.

Here is the list of ingredients:
1 tablespoon of olive oil
500 grams of broad beans
3/4 cup of risoni
4 green onions / spring onions whatever you call them, sliced thinly
2/3 cup coarsely chopped fresh flat leaf parsley
1/2 cup coarsely chopped fresh mint
2 tablespoons lemon juice - use fresh not squeezy lemon. IMPORTANT.

Initial tips:
All this stuff you can buy at Marks and Spencer or Waitrose more readily that other places. See this recipe already smells of quality.
Risoni is a small rice shaped pasta. It is also available in Turkish shops. [i.e cheap]



First things first, get your broad beans, put them in a heavy saucepan or a ceramic bowl that you can cover with a dinner plate, and tip boiling water straight from the kettle on them. Cover and leave to stand for 10 minutes. Drain them and wait for them to cool down. After that is done, you have to peel the greyish outer shell from the bean. Anticipating that this was going to be fucking boring, I decided to use a mixture of baby garden peas and broad beans so that I only had to peel 250 grams worth. Not just a pretty face.

Cook the risoni like the side of the risoni packet tells you. Rinse under cold water when you drain it.

Then get your favourite saucepan. [Mine is still my Le Creuset one even though I nearly killed it with a freestyle Lamb and Honey Moroccan stew I made the other day that burned almost dry. But that is another story.]

Put the oil and the onions on a low heat and wait till the bit of onion go a bit soft. Add the cold risoni and the beans / peas / sugar snap peas / whatever [NOT LENTILS] til everything warms up together again. Add all the herbs [these don't have to be exact measurement BTW. A big handful of parsley and a slightly smaller one of mint would be accurate enough] and lemon juice.

Eat. Or leave it and eat it cold.



Here it is.