Fava Bean Kuku

I make a lot of egg dishes. My husband eats eggs with vegetables every morning and to help him out I make big batches of egg dishes every now and then. I think his egg veggie scrambles are really good (even better than my frittatas, to be honest) but it does involve him cooking it fresh every morning. To help him save some time, I started making frittatas recently since they keep well and take well to reheating too.

Since I've been on a middle eastern kick, my task was made easy since middle eastern cuisine has a frittata like dish called kuku already. It's basically a Persian/Irani style frittata, generally made with tons of herbs and sometimes with barberries and walnuts. I've made the traditional version with herbs, barberries and walnuts and aside from not seasoning it well (my fault), it was delicious. The walnut and barberries added quite a bit of texture and flavor to the finished dish. I was curious about this fava bean version from the Jerusalem cookbook. Since fava beans have quite a bit of protein too, I thought it would be a perfect addition for healthy breakfasts :)
This would make a really good dinner too though, as I found out one night with some some good home made naan e berberi bread and olives. Yum!

Recipe adapted from Jerusalem, Yotam Ottolenghi & Sami Tamimi
Makes 8 servings

Ingredients:
1/4 cup hot milk
2 huge pinches saffron
1/4 cup hot water
2 tbsp powdered sugar
1 lb/450 gm frozen fava beans (I could only find baby lima beans, so I used that)
5 tbsp barberries
3 tbsp olive oil
2 large yellow onions, chopped
4 garlic cloves, minced
11 eggs
1 cup chopped dill
1 cup chopped mint
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper

Instructions:
Mix the saffron in the milk and set aside to steep for 30 minutes. Dissolve the sugar in the hot water and steep barberries in it for 10 minutes. Drain barberries and set aside.
Cook frozen beans according to the package's instructions. Rinse in cold water, drain and set aside.
Preheat oven to 350 F. Heat a 12" cast iron pan n medium heat for 5 minutes. Add 2 tbsp olive oil and and sauce chopped onions for about 8 minutes till taking on some color. Add the minced garlic and sauce for a minute or two more. Set aside (off heat) to cool. Whisk the eggs with herbs, salt and pepper. Add the saffron steeped milk and drained barberries. Add the cooled onion garlic mixture and whisk it well. Wipe the cast iron pan clean with paper towels and heat 1 tbsp olive oil on high for a minute. Add the egg mixture and spread it evenly and cook for 30-60 seconds on stovetop. Transfer it to the preheated oven ad bake for 30-40 minutes till the eggs are set. Set aside to cool and then cut.