Medieval cooking - Recipe fore Broad Bean Fritata

This recipe for a Bean Omelette or Friger la Fava comes from Libro de arte coquinaria as reproduced in The Original Mediterranean Cuisine. I wanted to try this recipe because I had never eaten broad beans before and wasn't sure if I would like them. (Turns out that I do!)

The recipe in the book is:
1 cup of fresh or frozen broad beans
half an onion finely chopped
1 tb olive oil
1-2 slices of pancetta, cut into strips
1 tb chopped parsley
4-6 sage leaves, finely chopped
3 eggs
salt and freshly ground pepper

The original recipe also adds chopped figs. I couldn't get fresh figs or get any pancetta, so I substituted prosciutto and omitted the figs altogether. If I did this recipe again I would use a greater amount of prosciutto or possibly bacon (just because it has a strong flavour and is easy to obtain.)

I used

1.5 cups of broad beans (frozen and thawed)
1 onion
100 g prosciutto
6 fresh sage leaves
1 apple
12 eggs
one quarter teaspoon of paprika
one quarter teaspoon of nutmeg
1-2 tb dried parsley
pepper and salt to taste
small amount of olive oil

I cooked the broad beans on salted water. I diced the onion and cooked it until it was soft in a little bit of olive oil. Then I added the diced prosciutto. I added the diced apple. I finely sliced the sage and added it to the pan. I removed one third of the bean 'skins' and chopped the beans, adding them to the pan right at the end (as they were already cooked.

In a separate dish, I beat the 12 eggs and added sweet smoked paprika, nutmeg, pepper and salt and the dried parsley. I added the apple, onion and prosciutto mix from the other pan and mixed it all together. I decided to cook this dish as a frittata for ease of serving, so lightly sprayed a frittata dish with olive oil spray and added the eggy mix. I cooked the dish for about 20 minutes at 170 degrees C. When the top was golden and the centre was firm, I took it out and cooled it on a cooling rack.

I prefer my egg dishes quite firm, but this could be cooked less to make it a little more gooey. The amounts of ingredients I used made a small and large frittata.

This dish would be really delicious with garlic and cheese added.