Skillet Ful Medames with Tomato, Cumin, and Toasted Sesame
Fava beans warmed in garlicky olive oil with cumin and coriander, partly mashed and sharpened with lemon, topped with chopped tomato and cucumber, cold skyr, chile, and toasted sesame.
Why You'll Love This Recipe
Ful is what a great many people across Egypt and the Levant eat in the morning, sold out of huge copper pots on the street and made at home in a saucepan, and once I started making it I understood why. Beans warmed in good olive oil with garlic and cumin turn into something soft and savory that takes about twelve minutes from a can. The trick is texture: press some of the beans against the side of the pan so they break down and thicken everything around them, and leave the rest whole so there is something to chew.
The beans on their own are mild and earthy, so everything else is there to sharpen them. Lemon juice goes in at the end and again at the table, chopped tomato and cucumber sit cold on top of the hot beans, and sliced green chile brings heat that arrives late. A spoonful of skyr melts down the side, thick and tangy against the cumin. Toasted sesame is the last thing, and its nutty crackle against the creamy beans is what makes people go back for more. Eat it with a spoon and keep the lemon close.
This has become my answer to mornings when I want something hot and savory and have not planned anything. Everything in it lives in the cupboard or the crisper drawer, it costs very little, and it feeds four people from two cans. I make it year round, with good tomatoes in summer and with whatever the store has in February, when the extra lemon matters more. It also travels well in a jar for lunch, warmed or not, with the salad and skyr packed separately.
Ingredients
- 2 (15 oz) cans fava beans, drained and rinsed (about 3 1/4 cups)
- 1 1/2 cups plain nonfat skyr
- 1 3/4 cups cherry tomatoes, quartered
- 1 Persian cucumber, cut into small dice
- 3 1/2 tbsp sesame seeds
- 3 tbsp lemon juice, from 1 large lemon, plus halves for the table
- 5 garlic cloves, minced
- 2 tsp ground cumin
- 1 tsp ground coriander
- 1 green chile, sliced into thin rings
- 4 scallions, thinly sliced
- 3/4 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley
- 1 1/2 tbsp olive oil, plus a little for the top
- 1/4 tsp fine sea salt
Instructions
- Get the toppings ready first: Quarter the tomatoes, dice the cucumber small, and toss them together with half the parsley, half the scallions, and a squeeze of the lemon juice. Slice the chile into thin rings. The beans take twelve minutes and you want everything cold and waiting when they come off the heat.
- Toast the sesame seeds: Put the sesame seeds in a small dry pan over medium heat and shake it steadily for about two minutes, until they smell nutty and start to jump. Tip them straight onto a plate. They carry on cooking in a hot pan and go bitter quickly if you leave them in it.
- Bloom the garlic and spices: Warm the olive oil in a wide skillet or saucepan over medium heat. Add the garlic and cook for one minute, stirring, until it is fragrant and just barely colored. Stir in the cumin and coriander and give them thirty seconds in the oil, until they smell toasted and darken a shade.
- Warm and mash the beans: Add the drained fava beans with the salt and half a cup of water. Bring it to a gentle simmer and cook for six to eight minutes, stirring now and then. Partway through, press about a third of the beans against the side of the pan with the back of a spoon so they break down and thicken the liquid around the whole ones. Add water a splash at a time if it tightens up more than you want.
- Finish with lemon and build the bowls: Take the pan off the heat and stir in the rest of the lemon juice, tasting as you go. Spoon the beans into four shallow bowls, pile the tomato and cucumber over one side, and add a spoonful of skyr to the other. Finish with the sesame seeds, chile rings, the remaining parsley and scallions, and a thread of olive oil over the top.
Variations
- With a cooked egg: Halve a hard-cooked egg over each bowl, cooked nine minutes so the yolk sets through, which makes a heavier breakfast for a long day.
- Tahini drizzle: Whisk tahini with lemon juice and cold water until pourable and run it over the beans in place of the skyr for a nuttier, richer bowl.
- Greens folded in: Wilt four packed cups of chopped mustard greens into the pan just before the beans finish, so their pepperiness runs through the whole dish.
- Smoky version: Add a teaspoon of smoked paprika with the cumin, which takes the pan in a darker, deeper direction and suits a cold morning.
Storage & Leftovers
The beans keep five days sealed in the refrigerator and thicken considerably as they sit, which is normal. Keep the tomato and cucumber in their own container so they stay crisp, and the skyr in its tub. Built bowls do not hold, since the cold toppings weep into the warm beans within an hour.
Reheat the beans in a saucepan over medium heat with a few tablespoons of water, stirring until they loosen and steam, three or four minutes. They will taste flatter the second day, so add a fresh squeeze of lemon and a pinch of cumin at the end and they come right back.
The beans freeze for three months in flat, sealed portions. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator and reheat with extra water, since they set firm in the freezer. Chop fresh tomato and cucumber when you serve them rather than freezing the salad, which turns to water on thawing.
Notes & Tips
- Mash a third, no more: The point is a creamy base holding whole beans. Mash the lot and you have a puree, mash none and it is a bowl of loose beans in oil with nothing binding them.
- Keep water beside the pan: Canned favas drink up liquid as they warm. Add it a splash at a time until the beans sit in a loose sauce rather than a paste, which is the texture you want under a spoon.
- Bloom the cumin, do not boil it: Thirty seconds in hot oil is what turns ground cumin from dusty to toasted. Stirred into the beans and water later, it never gets there.
- Lemon at the end and again at the table: Acid fades with heat, so the juice stirred in off the burner does one job and the wedges squeezed over the bowl do another. Both are needed here.
- Keep the toppings cold: The pleasure of this bowl is the cold, crisp salad and the cool skyr against hot beans. Chop them while the pan works and take them out of the refrigerator at the last minute.
Nutrition & Mindful Eating
- Fava beans, skyr, and sesame carry this bowl between them. The beans bring fiber and a soft, earthy body, the skyr adds protein and a cool tang, and the sesame scattered over the top brings the crunch and a good deal of the calcium.
- Fava beans are one of the older cultivated legumes and they cook up creamy and mild, with plant protein and iron together in the same spoonful. The lemon juice going in at the end sharpens them and also helps your body take up more of that iron.
- Skyr is strained until it is thick enough to stand a spoon in, which is what concentrates its protein and calcium, and its sourness is exactly what a bowl of warm, oily beans wants sitting against it.
- Cumin and coriander bloomed in olive oil are the smell of this dish, warm and a little citrusy, and cumin carries more iron than a spoonful of ground seed has any business carrying.
- Tomato, cucumber, and parsley go on cold and keep everything lively, adding vitamin C and a crispness that cuts the softness underneath. Their juice runs down into the beans and becomes part of the sauce by the third or fourth spoonful.
- As you eat, pay attention to the moment the cold salad and the hot beans meet on the spoon, and let the lemon and cumin slow you down long enough to notice when you have had enough.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are fava beans sold as?
Look for cans labeled fava beans, foul medames, or ful mudammas, usually in the international aisle or at a Middle Eastern grocer. They are small, brown-skinned, and sold already cooked, which is what makes this a twelve-minute breakfast.
Can I use dried favas?
Yes, though they need soaking overnight and an hour or more of simmering, which puts them outside a weekday morning. Cook a large batch when you have time, freeze it in portions, and this recipe starts from the thawed beans.
What if I cannot find them at all?
Chickpeas or pinto beans make a good pan on the same method, mashed the same way. They taste a little sweeter and more mild, so push the cumin up to two and a half teaspoons and add an extra squeeze of lemon at the end.
Is this spicy?
Only lightly, and the heat sits on top rather than through the beans, so anyone can leave their chile rings on the side of the bowl. If you want it hotter, add half the chile to the pan with the garlic and keep the rest for the table.