How to pair broad beans and wine?
For 6,000 years in the Near East, broad beans have been nourishing and delighting, nutritious and tasty as they are. The ancient Romans took them Faba addiction Seriously, and modern Romans still don’t give up on drinking a few sips of their Frascati with broad beans, local salami and a contrasting Pecorino cheese when spring arrives. However, the Portuguese are the unbeatable masters in their culinary execution. So what wines should you pair with this precious bean that heralds spring?
FAVA BEANS IN THE WORLD
The fact that broad beans are one of the only species of Fabacae - or legumes that include pods, peas and beans - that did not originate in South or Central America, allowed them to travel around the world from their origins in the Mediterranean basin and establish themselves as a staple food from Europe to Asia, and then also in the Americas. The recipe book is global and gigantic, and as one of those who venerate broad beans, I always make a point of trying the different interpretations that I find of them everywhere. Rich in flavor and somewhat bitter, the legumes in this article fall into that category of idiosyncratic foods, which divide either love or hate, but which must be respected.
The world’s largest producer of broad beans is China, and when spring arrives, a number of regional recipes appear on menus. At one meal in London, I had broad beans sautéed with Chinese bacon and Sichuan peppers, flavored with a touch of rice wine, soy sauce and toasted sesame seeds. A fine Riesling Spätlese from the Mosel did the honours with flying colours, and I think it would even convert some broad bean detractors to our side of die-hard enthusiasts.
Originating in Egypt, which is one of the 10 largest producers of broad beans, and now spread throughout the Levant and currently the world, falafel is a broad bean dumpling that can also contain chickpeas, flavored with Moorish spices. Served with hummus made with beans, falafel is perfect for rosé wines that provide freshness to contrast with the frying, and also for sunny fruits that provide a soft taste to soften the bitter edges of the broad beans and sesame tahini, a fundamental ingredient in hummus. A rosé from the upper Bekaa Valley, always rich and fresh, is my technical choice, with a Middle Eastern accent.
I also find fava beans on the Mexican table in soups or as a filling for tlacoyos, and in these cases a Fumé Blanc or a White Zinfandel from the Valle de Guadalupe in Baja California are excellent choices for regional harmony. They are also abundant in several other countries in Central and South America, where these legumes arrived in the 16th century.
If there is a country in Europe that can compete with Portugal in terms of tradition and passion for broad beans, it is Italy. As they are a harbinger of spring and one of the first vegetables to be harvested after winter, broad beans are associated in the old peninsula with cheerful meals “fuori porta”, and in many regions it is still traditional to eat the first sprouts of broad beans raw, sweet and juicy, contrasting with the salty and spicy salami and Pecorino cheese. This combination of broad beans with Pecorino is truly divine, as is when compared with the other “salts” of the world, including anchovies and pancetta. Broad beans, so tender and early, go very well with Mediterranean whites from Italy, such as Vermentino from Liguria and Tuscany, or Verdicchio from the Marche. And let's not forget the very Roman Frascati, as long as it comes from serious producers, not the industrial and thin stuff made to quench the thirst of the thousands of tourists who invade the “eternal city”.
On the other side of the Adriatic, broad beans also find their place in “mezes” and Greek dishes.Sautéed in good olive oil, scented with lots of fresh mint and garnished with a contrasting salty cheese, the local feta or the Cypriot halloumi, they make for an effusive spring salad. It would be no Greek tragedy to accompany it with a Malagousiá, a grape variety that produces, both in central Greece and in the Peloponnese, a white that is more fruity and herbal than the spectacular, but very mineral and sharp, Assyrticos of Santorini.
FAVA BEANS IN PORTUGAL
As a broad bean lover and traveling sommelier, I must confess that I don't know of a country in the world that has such a vast and captivating wealth of recipes with these legumes as our Portugal. From the countless versions of salads with broad beans, many of them with coriander, to creams, soups and asparagus, accompanying various fish and even cod, to stews with many parts of the pig, with game, sausages and poached eggs, or in rice, there are broad beans for all tastes and possible wines.
For this article I decided to take into account the two most traditional ways of enjoying broad beans here: very early, semi-ripe, eaten raw with just fleur de sel, olive oil or butter; or more mature, in a steaming stew with bacon, chorizo, black pudding and spare ribs, white wine, onion, garlic and coriander.
CHARACTERISTICS FOR HARMONIZATION
One of the reasons why broad beans became a staple food for many ancient peoples is their extremely high nutritional value, which was allegedly not known at the time in chemical and quantitative terms, but rather due to the feeling of fullness they caused. Their extremely rich content of proteins, fibers, vitamins and starch satiate the hunger of the body and soul. And their extremely low lipid content makes broad beans a highly valuable food, not to mention their flavor!
When we add a hedonistic layer to the broad beans, what was good becomes exceptional. The outer layer envelops a filling with an intense green, natural, forest, herbal, chlorophyll, earthy and at the same time sweet, starchy, buttery and almondy flavor. A delicious and characteristic bitter aftertaste appears in the mid-palate and lingers in the final sensations. Most of this bitterness is in the “fact” of the broad beans. And the decision to peel them totally influences the final result of the pairing.
TENDENCY TOWARDS BITTERNESS
Bitter is one of the five fundamental tastes, if we include the oriental umami. We are born liking only sweet, which signals calories, and umami, which signals proteins, consequently energy and growth. We learn to like salt, acid and finally bitter, the latter indicating unripe or even toxic foods, over time. According to Dr. Jamie Goode's book “I Taste Red, The Science of Tasting Wine”, contrary to what was previously believed, bitterness is captured by our taste receptors, the taste buds, spread throughout the tongue and palate, and not only in the circumvallate papillae concentrated at the back of the tongue. Ingredients or recipes with a slight bitter touch, or a tendency towards bitterness, are perfectly plausible for creating excellent pairings with wines characterized by a balance leaning towards softness, to the detriment of hardness. This is because the tendency towards bitterness, just like the acidic tendency or the flavor, are elements of hardness in foods, which must be counteracted, or buffered, by elements of softness in wines: namely, their richness in fruit, alcohol, glycerin or residual sugars, when applicable.
Ingredients such as broad beans, especially if they are not shelled, and also artichokes, chicory, radicchio, endive, arugula, liver and dark chocolate; or cooking methods such as: grilling with charcoal and consequent carbonization of the crust; or very long cooking with certain spices, carry or reinforce a tendency towards bitterness. The effect of this tendency is to synergistically highlight all the elements of hardness in the wine candidate for pairing. Acidity, mineral sapidity, and the astringency of tannins tend to jump out of balance when they clash with bitter foods. If the wines bring some bitterness in addition to the astringency, then a wine and food disaster is guaranteed.
In short, after respecting the first rule of pairing, which is to regulate the level of structure of the wine with the level of structure of the dish, we have to find wines that respect the delicious, but always present, bitter aftertaste of the beans. Wines that carry the softness of fruit and alcohol, and without edges of hardness, tannins and acids, protruding.
THE FRIENDLY CORIANDER
Like broad beans, coriander is characterised by its fresh, foresty, earthy aromas. Other refreshing notes, such as aniseed, menthol and citrus peel, pair wonderfully with broad beans: it seems that the aromas of one continue in the other. Not surprisingly, coriander is a faithful companion of broad beans in many recipes in Portugal and around the world.
From an aromatic point of view, there are a number of Portuguese and foreign grape varieties that carry these volatile aniseed/mentholated compounds: anethole, menthol, estragole, eugenol, etc. and can generate good relationships or marriages. Alvarinho, Arinto, Sauvignon Blanc, Verdejo are some of the white varieties, and Rufete, Trincadeira, Syrah, Grenache are some of the red varieties to keep in mind.
TESTS
During a week of testing, I tasted dozens of wines made with raw fava beans and with fava beans cooked in the Portuguese style. In addition to being absolutely certain that I do not suffer from favism, I was able to enjoy these sensational legumes and refine my technical opinion on the wines that pair best with them.
The first rule of pairing, which is the calibration of structure so that wine and food have the same volume, weight and aromatic load, ensured that white and rosé wines worked very well with raw beans. Less weight on the table, less weight in the glass. Very important, as we discussed previously, is to bring wines that balance the softness of the fruit, a usual consequence of less cold weather situations, to cushion the tendency for bitterness in the beans. So, choose a More mature and unctuous Alvarinho than a very mineral and tense one. Or a Loureiro from old vines, richer and more fragrant, than a very young, sharp and nervous one. Whites and rosés from the Mediterranean, softer and sunnier, will pair wonderfully well with raw broad beans and the arrival of the warmer and brighter seasons.
With Portuguese stewed broad beans, however, the structural contribution given to the dish by the bacon, sausages and spare ribs, in addition to the seasonings, forces us to place more weight on the scale of structure on the wine side. Very rich whites, characterful rosés and reds are now the correct choices for this fabulous classic of Portuguese cuisine. Always with the condition of softness over hardness in the balance of the wine pairing.
The very structured and tannic reds I tasted during my tests failed when compared to the broad beans: a great Bairrada with firm Baga tannins had all its hardness strongly highlighted by the bitterness of the broad beans, becoming too harsh and uncompromising. A great Alentejo wine that was very balanced before being served became taciturn, detracting from its rich fruit and typicality.
The winners were a very fresh red wine from Rufete da Beira Interior, a high-altitude Alentejo wine from Trincadeira, and a Barbera with very well-resolved tannins and a marked Piedmont freshness. All of them wines with a structure that matches the dish, subtle and slightly astringent tannins that do not get out of balance when confronted with the bitterness, and, finally, a pleasant freshness that contrasts with the starchy sweetness of the broad beans and the solid fat of the pork sausages.
One last consideration, since we are tasting Clarets and Palhetes from Portugal in this issue of Revista de Vinhos. These spring wines, among the whites, rosés and reds, also have all the attributes to pair perfectly with various broad bean recipes. Try the wine and food tests like this sommelier, because “broad beans fill me up, broad beans kill me with pleasure” when it comes to pairing wine and food.