Never peel fava beans

If you're following those seemingly endless number of cooking shows on television, you might start to think that all those Michelin-starred chefs know a thing or two about cooking. One of the things they want you to learn is to peel fava beans. Yes, you too, Martha Stewart.

It's a lot of work, removing the outer tender skin of each and every individual bean. Where does this weird practice come from? Some suspect from the French professional kitchens, where chefs are constantly challenged to come up with new tricks and trucs to keep their large brigades de cuisine in operation.

To be honest, it's a waste of time and flavour.

In Greece, Italy and Spain, where restaurant kitchens are run much more traditionally, there is no impetus to change anything that has been honed to perfection for thousands of years.

Because, by removing the skin of each bean, you also remove much of that very earthy flavour that makes these broad beans so tasteful. Without the skin fava beans taste more like peas than like fava beans.

So, never peel fava beans.