The last week of December 2008 was perhaps the best week of having breakfast. That week was different. It was unique. It was oh soooo good! And there was only one thing that made it so good - no, not that dreamy Arab - Ful Medames, a.k.a Egyptian Fava beans. If that makes me sound pathetic, so be it....you cannot judge until you've tried it!! FulMedames was a part of the Arabic breakfast I used to have, which also included pita, baba ghanoush, feta cheese, labneh, hummus, and eggs. But Ful always overshadowed these other insignificant things! The whole week that I was in Dubai, that's all I used to eat for breakfast....Ful Medames with pita.
After coming back from Dubai, I started to miss Ful. I knew I shouldn't have gotten attached to it, especially since I knew I wasn't going to be able to have it for more than a week. I thought Ful was going to be like an exotic affair you had in a foreign land....intense, but gone in a week never to be seen again. Every morning I had it, that's what I fooled myself into believing. I started counting down the days we had together. The week was up, I was back at my place having carbs for breakfast. Life was dull without Ful. And that's when I decided to make Ful, simply because I had to have it.
I'm not a good cook....I know only 3-4 things at the most, and those are barely edible. But I decided that I had to do it if I wanted Ful. I searched the net for Ful Medames recipes, and (un)fortunately, there were a gazillion Ful recipes out there...and each one different. I figured out it wasn't going to be an easy task trying to get Ful back in my life, but that's the price I have to pay. And so, the search began....
The first recipe I checked called for canned fava beans. I thought to myself, that shouldn't be difficult, I mean they have all kinds of canned beans...black, red, butter, kidney, black-eyed, etc. Turns out, it's more difficult than I thought. The local grocery store didn't have it, so I went to Whole Foods and even they didn't have it. So I went to Trader Joes but no luck there either. I finally went to an ethnic store in West Philly and was lucky to get dried fava beans (not canned). Because of this, I decided to look for recipes that required dried fava beans instead of canned ones.
The first time I made Ful, it turned out really disgusting...not even remotely close to what I used to have in Dubai. The peels of beans made it hard to chew, it didn't have a smooth texture, and left a bad taste in my mouth. So, after a couple of weeks, I decided to try another recipe. For this one, I soaked the beans overnight, peeled them, and cooked them in pressure cooker. Still a bad taste. A month later, I tried another recipe where I soaked them, peeled them, and simmered them for 2 hours. No luck....still left a bad taste.
By this time, I was down to enough beans to make Ful for 2 more days. Day before, I thought I should give it one more try. So I soaked the beans overnight, and did not peel them. Yesterday, I cooked them for 4 hours, seasoned them with cumin, and added olive oil, parsley, de-seeded and chopped tomatoes, and chopped onions. That made the taste a little more bearable, but still not good enough. What happened to the creamy texture of my favorite Ful? During this time, I had also been to a couple of middle-eastern restaurants that served Ful, but nothing as good as the one I had in Dubai.
I have enough beans left to make it one more time, and if I don't do it right this time around (or come close to it), I'll have to give up on Ful....and I don't want to do that. It is good for my health, it's filling, and it's high in fiber, protein, L-dopa and iron, and low in carbs and fat...they're everything a person could ask for. But it seems like I'll have to give up on them...on Ful, which will forever remain an exotic dish of the middle-east. But I have one more shot, so the quest continues.......
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