Bessara, Moroccan Fava Bean Soup

I've been very uninspired lately. I think I have food fatigue, which sounds weird (especially coming from me) but I've been very uninterested in cooking or eating food the last week or so. BUT I bought a bunch of new cookbooks this week and had the meal of a lifetime at a 3 Michelin star restaurant (Oh Manresa, how I love thee!), and it worked to perk me up and bring my focus back to food :)
Now I'm excited to be using spring ingredients and bring back color to my plate and maybe even post about all my meals here on this blog. Let's see how it goes!

This was a soup I made a couple weeks ago when it was still cold with rainy/cloudy days. The heartiness of the fava beans hits the spot when it's cold outside and the bright toppings of cilantro, pickled sumac onions and lemon juice make it seem very spring like for the rest of the beautiful weather! You could use fresh fava beans instead of dried ones since they're in season now. You'd need to use about 3 lbs of fava beans in pods though. Shelling would be a hassle but at least you wouldn't need to peel the shelled beans afterwards since cooking fresh beans for long periods of time should soften the peel enough to be blended into a smooth puree :)

Recipe cobbled together from a bunch of recipes I found online
Makes 6 servings

Ingredients:
500 gm dry fava beans (For goodness sake, get peeled dried fava beans for this. It's almost not worth peeling it yourself. I only had unpeeled ones and it took me a freaking hour to get it done. I'd only do this for people I love very much)
1 yellow onion, peeled and quartered
5 large garlic cloves, peeled and smashed
2 tsp ground corainder
1/2 tsp ground caraway seeds
2 tsp sea salt
1 bunch parsley, washed and coarsely chopped (stem and all)
1 bunch cilantro, washed and coarsely chopped (stem and all), plus some leaves & tender stems set aside for garnish
1 large lemon, cut in half
6 tbsp olive oil
3 tsp aleppo pepper
Sumac red onions (from here)

Instructions:
Soak fava beans in plenty of water at least overnight, but ideally for 24 hours. Peel the favas if they aren't already peeled (I hope for your sake that it is). Drain the soaked fava beans and add them to a 3 quart saucepan and add enough water to cover by at least an inch. Add onion, garlic, coriander, caraway and sea salt. Bring it to a boil on high and lower to medium and cook uncovered till the favas have disintegrated. Mine took about 30-40 minutes. At this point, you can add more water if you want it more watery or alternately cook it down uncovered to make it less watery. It all depends on how you like your soup. Turn off the heat once it's done. Add the parsley and cilantro and let it wilt for a minute or two in the hot soup. Blend it with a stick blender till it forms a smooth green puree (it might take a couple of minutes). Taste for salt. Since there's not much going on in this soup, it should be seasoned well with salt for the subtle flavor of fava to shine. Pour hot soup into a wide soup bowl and add a little lemon juice for each serving and mix it in. Drizzle 1 tbsp olive oil, 1/2 tsp aleppo pepper, some cilantro leaves and sumac red onions for each of the bowl. Serve with some flatbread (like Irani naan e barbari).