Egyptian broad beans crushed warm with garlic, cumin, lemon and a lot of olive oil, topped with tomato and egg. Vegan without the egg, and about 60p a portion.
Prep
10 mins
Cook
15 mins
Servings
4
Per serving
£0.65
Difficulty
easy
Egypt's national breakfast, eaten from morning until night. The beans should be crushed only partly, so half stay whole, and everything is seasoned aggressively at the end rather than cooked in. Tinned ful beans make it a ten minute dish.
If serving with egg, boil the eggs for 8 minutes, cool in cold water, peel and halve.
Tip the drained beans into a saucepan with 100ml of their reserved liquid and warm through over a medium heat for 6 to 8 minutes.
Crush roughly half the beans against the side of the pan with a potato masher or the back of a wooden spoon, leaving the rest whole.
Half crushed, half whole is the texture that matters. Fully mashed and it becomes a bland purée.
Take the pan off the heat and stir in the garlic paste, cumin, the juice of one and a half lemons, 3 tbsp of the olive oil and 1 tsp of the salt.
If using tahini, whisk it with the remaining lemon juice and 2 tbsp cold water until smooth and pourable.
Taste the beans and adjust. Ful needs more lemon and salt than you expect, so keep going until it tastes sharp rather than merely savoury.
Spoon into wide bowls and top with the diced tomato, red onion, parsley, halved eggs if using, and the tahini sauce.
Finish with the remaining 2 tbsp olive oil and a scattering of pul biber.