A Bowl Ful
Ful or Ful Mudammas is to Egyptians much like what misal is for Pune. Its a heart warm breakfast to start your day off in the streets of Egypt and many countries have variations of it in that region. It is a warm bowlful of creamy and chunky paste of cooked dried fava beans. It is seasoned with cumin powder and pepper. It is served piping hot in a bowl and then mixed in with generous amounts of fresh lime juice, topped with creamy tahini and olive oil or the milder sesame oil of the Egyptian kind. After that the bowl is a canvas and can take many forms. People add hot sauces or a boiled egg, add spoonfuls of fresh Egyptian vegetable salads and will sometimes also just stuff it in flat breads for a sandwich. It is typically served with a side of Egyptian bread or pita and a nice helping of vegetable pickles.
Cooking dried Fava beans
We took a slow cooking approach to the fava beans. Look for the small sized dried fava beans available in ethnic grocery stores. We soaked them for 8 hours. Then added salt and thrice the water and cooked on slow heat and covered for four hours. We then drained the water, mashed the beans with the base of a sturdy flat based glass. Then we added twice the water and mixed and reduced by half on low heat. This took us about two hours. We then seasoned with pinches of salt, cumin powder and aleppo pepper. adjust consistency to be that of a creamy flowing paste.
We prepared our tahini sauce by mixing tahini with a few spoons of ice cold water at a time and mixing till it obtained drizzling consistency. We chopped a persian cucumber and mixed it with chopped parsely and crushed green chili. We seasoned it with salt and smashed it with knife a bit. For plating we scooped a few ladles of the cooked fav beans paste into the serving plate makign sure we keep the consistency flowing. We mixed in juice of half a lime with a spoon. We then spooned some of the tahini dressing on top. We drizzled some middle eastern sesame oil on top.
We then spooned some of our cucumber chili parsley salad and a cut boiled egg on top. Serve with warm pita breads (moisten them and warm in 250F oven for a few minutes or microwave 5 to 10 secs and serve immediately and consume immediately else they will be chewy). Else you can also use our tips on reheating frozen naan bread. On the side we added some pickled green chilies, carrots, turnips, radishes and some grilled eggplants (we did not have eggplant pickles).
Ful Mudammas
- Total Time: 14 hours 30 mins
- Yield: Serves 4
Ingredients
- 1 cup dried small fava beans soaked in thrice the water for 8 hours
- salt for seasoning
- 1 tsp cumin powder
- 1 tsp aleppo pepper (substitute paprika or mild chili powder)
- 8 tsp tahini
- 1 persian cucumber washed and chopped fine with skin
- 2 tsp chopped parsley (flat leaf)
- 1 green chili crushed fine (skip seeds if chili is very hot)
- 4 chopped boiled eggs
- 8 tsp middle eastern sesame oil (substitute olive oil)
- assorted vegetable pickles (green chilies, carrots, turnips, radishes, eggplants)
- 4 Pita breads
- Juice of 2 large limes
Instructions
- Drain the water from soaked fava beans
- Add 3 cups water and 1 tsp salt and cooke the fava beans covered in a pot on low-med heat for 4 hours
- Drain the water from the beans
- Mash the beans with back end of a spoon or a sturdy flat based thick glass or a masher (don’t use a glass that will break and hurt you)
- Add 2 cups water, mix thoroughly and cook in the pot without lid on low heat till reduced by half and yield creamy paste like consistency (else reduce further) This can be prepared ahead of time and stored in refrigerator up-to two days. Just add water to adjust consistency and reheat at time of serving.
- taste and season with salt, cumin powder, aleppo pepper – taste and adjust seasoning further
- in a small bowl take the 8 tsp tahini add 1 tsp ice cold water at a time and mix. Ice cold water will loose tahini up. Mix and add spoonful of water at a time till a flowing drizzling consistency is obtained. Season with pinch of salt and a squeeze of lime.
- Mix the cucumber, chopped parsley and crushed green chili and season with salt and smash together very slightly with back of spoon or glass.
- For serving, ladle the warm fava bean paste into the 4 serving dishes
- Mix in juice of half a lime ine ach and stir and mix with a spoon
- Drizzle 2 or more tsp of the tahini sauce around one ach dish
- Drizzle 2 tsp middle eastern sesame oil on each dish
- Top the dish with the cucumber salad divided into 4 servings
- Top it with a boiled egg each
- Serve with side of pickles and warm pita bread
- Optionally drizzle any favored hot sauces on top – we like red chili peppers crushed to a paste with olive oil
- Prep Time: 14 hours
- Cook Time: 30 mins
