Bissara

Split dried broad beans cooked to a thick purée with nothing in it but garlic, eaten with more oil than seems reasonable.

Vegan.

Ingredients

• 500 g dried split broad beans, soaked overnight
• 8 cloves garlic
• 1.5 litres water
• 150 ml olive oil, plus more to serve
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin, plus more to serve
• 1 teaspoon sweet paprika
• 2 teaspoons salt
• juice of 1 lemon
• cayenne, to serve

Method

1. IT IS FOUR INGREDIENTS AND THE OIL IS ONE OF THEM. Beans, garlic, cumin, oil. No onion, no stock, no tomato, no herbs. A hundred and fifty millilitres of olive oil in the pot and more poured over each bowl is not excess -- it is the body and most of the flavour, and a cautious version is pale, floury and dull.
2. THE BEANS ARE SPLIT AND SKINLESS, which matters. Whole dried broad beans keep their tough skins and the soup needs sieving; split ones collapse to a smooth purée on their own. If only whole ones can be found, the skins must be slipped off after soaking, which is an hour of work.
3. SALT AT THE END, as with any dried pulse. Salted early the skins set and the middles stay chalky however long it cooks.
4. Beans soaked overnight in plenty of cold water, then drained and rinsed. The soaking water thrown away.
5. Into a pot with the fresh water and the whole garlic cloves. Brought to the boil.
6. The grey foam skimmed off for the first 10 minutes.
7. Simmered 1 hour to 1 hour 15 with the lid ajar, until the beans have completely collapsed and the garlic has disappeared.
8. Beaten hard with a whisk or blended smooth. It should be the thickness of double cream -- thinned with hot water if it is thicker, or simmered down if it is thinner.
9. NOW the salt, the cumin, the paprika and the 150 ml of oil, beaten in while it is still on a low heat.
10. Simmered 5 minutes more so the oil emulsifies into it rather than floating on top.
11. Lemon juice off the heat.
12. Served very hot in bowls, with a pool of raw olive oil poured over each, a heavy dusting of cumin and a pinch of cayenne. Bread to dip. It thickens to a paste overnight and is loosened with water.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Morocco · All recipes