Ful Mudammas

nother Lebanese dish, primarily. I do like this a lot, and vary the ingredients depending on what I have handy. The recipe normally calls for fava beans, traditionally, but I didn't have any, so I used cattle beans instead. Some versions of this garnish with cucumber, too. I eat cucumber in my fattouche salad so left it out.

Here's the list of ingredients:

• One cup of dried chick peas, soaked over night
• One cup of fava (or other) beans, soaked over night
• Two or three cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 tomato, diced
• Salt, preferably kosher or sea salt
• Juice from half of a lemon (or more!)
• A few radishes, finely sliced
• Cayenne pepper, to taste
• Pinch or two of turmeric
• Good quality extra virgin olive oil
• A few sprigs of parsley, roughly chopped, for a garnish

Soak the beans and peas over night in a bit of water. Just cover them, and check on them occasionally to make sure they don't need more water. They will swell. Add them to a pot, along with most of the cooking water, and heat them through until they are fork tender. Using a fork or a mortar from a mortar and pestle, mash roughly half of the mixture and let it thicken up.

Squeeze in the lemon juice (watch for pips!), stir in the minced garlic, the salt, the tomato, and the cayenne pepper. Let everything warm through. Pour out into a bowl, garnish with the sliced radishes and parsley, drizzle with good olive oil, and you're good to go.

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