We always like to test recipes leading up to our feasts. Some are very straight forward, using familiar ingredients, techniques, and flavor profiles. Others are mysterious, containing cryptic instructions, exotic ingredients, and, most commonly, no ratios or amounts of various ingredients. The recipe for Fave Menate is of the first category. It is a relatively straightforward dish and its ingredients can be found at any supermarket. That being said, Fave Menate has a lovely depth of flavor with each ingredient complementing the others.
In order to find the right recipe for a certain dish, first we look at the context of the feast. The Feast of Winterfell is, obviously, held in Winterfell. It is the end of summer when the full bounty of the North is available, and all of the Stark bannermen are in attendance. The North is a place of rustic beauty. Earthy simplicity and sturdy functionality seem to be in vogue. We imagine smoky halls with long wooden tables. There should be raucous music, unrestrained laughter, and perhaps a drunken brawl. That being the case, we begin our search for recipes that fit this aesthetic.
The book's text on this particular dish is rather vague. In the description of the feast, George R.R. Martin simply says "beans" in his list of dishes. We are essentially given free reign over this particular dish. The Medieval manuscripts that I possess do not contain a large variety of recipes for beans. In fact, most of the recipes fall into one of three categories; those that leave the beans whole and dress them simply with herbs and/or spices, those that grind the beans and dress them with herbs and/or spices, and those that thicken the ground beans with eggs like a frittata. Since our beans will be served with rich, fatty meats, we decided to focus on the second option.
The recipe for Fave Menate can be found in Maestro Martino di Cuomo's beautifully written The Art of Cooking. The original recipe specifies fava beans, but we found that any beans can be used. The recipe (translated from Italian) says:
Fave Menate
Take some crushed fava beans, wash them, and boil them until they are tender. Crush them in a mortar, then return to heat in a pot. Saute a finely chopped onion in a pot with oil, then add some sage and some finely chopped apples or dates. Serve the crushed fava beans in a bowl topped with the onion mixture and some good spices.
We decided to use Italian butter beans from Iacopi farms in Half Moon Bay. The recipe we chose went as follows:
1 cup dried Italian butter beans, soaked over night in 3 cups of water
1/2 white onion, diced small (1/4")
1/2 Pink Lady apple, diced small (1/4")
3 leaves sage, chopped
1/4 cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Salt to taste
First we boiled the beans until they were tender, which took about 45 minutes, in salted water. We drained the beans, saving the liquid, and crushed them into a paste, adding a bit of the cooking liquid back in to achieve a smooth consistency. Once the beans were ready, we sauteed the onion in the olive oil on medium heat until it just began to caramelize, then added the apple and continued to cook until the apple was tender. We plated the beans in a bowl and spooned the apples and onions on top. The sage was sprinkled over everything and a drizzle of olive oil was added to finish.
The result was exactly what we had hoped it would be. The beans have an earthiness to them with a nice grassy flavor on the back end. These flavors are highlighted by the sweetness of the apples and onions, and the herbacious sage and olive oil.
In order to find the right recipe for a certain dish, first we look at the context of the feast. The Feast of Winterfell is, obviously, held in Winterfell. It is the end of summer when the full bounty of the North is available, and all of the Stark bannermen are in attendance. The North is a place of rustic beauty. Earthy simplicity and sturdy functionality seem to be in vogue. We imagine smoky halls with long wooden tables. There should be raucous music, unrestrained laughter, and perhaps a drunken brawl. That being the case, we begin our search for recipes that fit this aesthetic.
The book's text on this particular dish is rather vague. In the description of the feast, George R.R. Martin simply says "beans" in his list of dishes. We are essentially given free reign over this particular dish. The Medieval manuscripts that I possess do not contain a large variety of recipes for beans. In fact, most of the recipes fall into one of three categories; those that leave the beans whole and dress them simply with herbs and/or spices, those that grind the beans and dress them with herbs and/or spices, and those that thicken the ground beans with eggs like a frittata. Since our beans will be served with rich, fatty meats, we decided to focus on the second option.
The recipe for Fave Menate can be found in Maestro Martino di Cuomo's beautifully written The Art of Cooking. The original recipe specifies fava beans, but we found that any beans can be used. The recipe (translated from Italian) says:
Fave Menate
Take some crushed fava beans, wash them, and boil them until they are tender. Crush them in a mortar, then return to heat in a pot. Saute a finely chopped onion in a pot with oil, then add some sage and some finely chopped apples or dates. Serve the crushed fava beans in a bowl topped with the onion mixture and some good spices.
We decided to use Italian butter beans from Iacopi farms in Half Moon Bay. The recipe we chose went as follows:
1 cup dried Italian butter beans, soaked over night in 3 cups of water
1/2 white onion, diced small (1/4")
1/2 Pink Lady apple, diced small (1/4")
3 leaves sage, chopped
1/4 cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Salt to taste
First we boiled the beans until they were tender, which took about 45 minutes, in salted water. We drained the beans, saving the liquid, and crushed them into a paste, adding a bit of the cooking liquid back in to achieve a smooth consistency. Once the beans were ready, we sauteed the onion in the olive oil on medium heat until it just began to caramelize, then added the apple and continued to cook until the apple was tender. We plated the beans in a bowl and spooned the apples and onions on top. The sage was sprinkled over everything and a drizzle of olive oil was added to finish.
The result was exactly what we had hoped it would be. The beans have an earthiness to them with a nice grassy flavor on the back end. These flavors are highlighted by the sweetness of the apples and onions, and the herbacious sage and olive oil.
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