Italian Fava Bean Purée with Wild Chicory | Fave e Cicorie
Updated: Oct 24
Two ingredients, two pots, and one of the oldest plates of food still eaten daily in southern Italy. Dried split fava is simmered in plain water until it falls apart, then beaten to a dense golden purée. Wild chicory is boiled separately in salted water and pressed dry. The two are set side by side, still warm, and flooded with raw olive oil. Nothing else goes on the plate except salt and, sometimes, a little raw onion or a dried chilli.
The interest is entirely in the contrast. The fava is sweet, starchy, almost custard soft. The chicory is green, mineral and genuinely bitter, with a stalk that has to be chewed. The olive oil is the third element and does the work of a sauce, carrying the bitterness across the purée and binding the two halves into one mouthful.
This is the version I cook: beans soaked properly and simmered with a potato for body, the purée beaten by hand rather than blended, the chicory boiled hard so it keeps its colour and its bite. Everything hangs on the oil, so buy the best bottle you can.
Yield: 4 servings as a side, 2 as a main. Soak: 12 hours. Prep: 20 minutes. Cook: 1 hour 15 minutes. Total: about 1 hour 40 minutes plus soaking. Difficulty: easy. Course: contorno. Region: Basilicata and the Murgia of Puglia.
The Story
Fave e cicorie is the food of the Murgia, the limestone plateau running from the Basilicata border across the province of Bari into the Salento. It is called ncapriata in Puglia and favetta in Basilicata, and it predates almost everything else on the southern Italian table. The fava was the staple legume of the Greek and Roman Mediterranean, grown here since antiquity because it fixes nitrogen into thin karst soil and dries hard enough to keep a year in a sack.
The chicory half of the plate was never bought. Cicoriella selvatica, the wild bitter chicory of the uncultivated stone fields, was foraged after the first autumn rains and again in early spring, and the gathering was women's work into living memory. Its bitterness is not a flaw to correct but the point of the dish: pairing a heavy starch with a bitter green is a nutritional instinct that arrived long before anyone could explain it.
What kept the dish alive is that it never pretended to be anything else. It was eaten for lunch in the fields out of a single terracotta bowl, and it is still served in the trattorie of Altamura and Matera in the same form, with bread from the same oven. The one thing that has changed is the oil: where a farming family poured what it pressed, a cook today can choose a Coratina from the Murgia groves, and that choice matters more than any technique below.
Ingredients
For the fava purée
Dried split fava beans, peeled, 1 lb (450 g)
Floury potato, peeled and diced, 1 small, about 5 oz (140 g)
Water, cold, 6 cups (1.4 L), plus more as needed
Bay leaf, 1
Fine sea salt, 2 tsp (12 g), added late
Extra virgin olive oil, 1/4 cup (60 ml), for beating in
For the chicory
Wild chicory, or catalogna puntarelle tops, 2 lb (900 g) untrimmed
Coarse sea salt, 2 tbsp (36 g), for the boiling water
Water, 4 quarts (3.8 L)
For finishing
Extra virgin olive oil, Coratina or another robust southern oil, 1/3 cup (80 ml)
Garlic clove, thinly sliced, 1, optional
Dried peperoncino, crumbled, 1 small, optional
Red onion, very thinly sliced, 2 tbsp, optional
Flaky sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Pane di Altamura or another sturdy country loaf, to serve
Preparation
Soaking the fava beans
Rinse the split fava under cold running water until it runs clear, picking out grit and discoloured pieces. Cover the beans by three inches of cold water and leave them 12 hours or overnight at room temperature; they roughly double in volume. Split fava softens without soaking, but the soak halves the cooking time and gives an even purée rather than a mixture of collapsed and stubborn beans. Drain and rinse again.
Starting the pot
Put the drained beans in a heavy saucepan with the diced potato, the bay leaf and 6 cups of cold water. The potato is not filler: its starch gives a smoothness fava alone does not have. Bring the pan slowly to a simmer and skim the grey foam of the first ten minutes, which carries a raw vegetal taste. Do not salt yet.
Simmering to collapse
Lower the heat so the surface barely trembles, set the lid ajar and cook for 60 to 75 minutes. Stir every ten minutes, scraping the bottom, because fava starch catches easily and one burnt patch flavours the whole pot. Add hot water a ladle at a time if the beans look dry before they are soft. They are ready when a bean crushes to nothing between two fingers. Add the fine sea salt only now.
Beating the purée
Take the pan off the heat, lift out the bay leaf and beat the beans hard against the side of the pan with a wooden spoon for two or three minutes. The purée tightens and turns from dull khaki to glossy pale gold as the starch emulsifies. Pour in the quarter cup of olive oil in a thin stream while you keep beating, as you would mount a sauce with butter. Never use a blender here.
Adjusting the consistency
The purée should fall slowly from the spoon and settle back into itself, between mashed potato and a thick soup. If it is stiff, loosen it with hot water and beat again; if loose, return it to low heat and stir until it tightens. Taste for salt while it is hot, because fava needs more than you expect and salt added at the table never disappears into it.
Boiling the chicory
While the beans cook, cut away the root end, discard yellow or tough outer leaves and split the thickest stalks lengthways so they cook at the rate of the tops. Wash in three changes of cold water, because wild chicory carries grit deep in the crown. Bring the 4 quarts of water to a rolling boil, add the coarse salt and push the chicory under. Boil uncovered and hard for 8 to 12 minutes, until the stalks are tender to a knife tip but the leaves hold their shape.
Draining and dressing the greens
Lift the chicory into a colander and press it gently with the back of a ladle to release the water held in the stalks, but do not wring it or it turns to a wet rag. Spread it on a tray for a minute so the steam escapes, then dress it while hot with a third of the finishing oil and a pinch of flaky salt. If you are using garlic and peperoncino, warm them in two tablespoons of oil until the garlic is pale gold and pour that over instead.
Plating
Serve this warm rather than hot, at around 140°F (60°C). Too hot and the olive oil turns aggressive and loses its fruit; cold, the purée sets into a block. Use a wide shallow bowl, warmed briefly, because the purée holds heat badly once spread thin.
Spoon the fava into one half of the bowl and push it out with the back of the spoon into a broad swirl with a shallow well at the centre. Lay the dressed chicory alongside, not on top, so the two stay separate until the diner combines them. That arrangement is the traditional one and also the practical one: greens set on the purée bleed their remaining water into it.
Pour the remaining finishing oil into the well and let it run, a full tablespoon per portion at least. Scatter the raw onion over the chicory if you are using it, add flaky salt and a turn of black pepper, and send it out with thick slices of Pane di Altamura, plain or grilled. The bread is not a garnish, it is the third component and the way the oil gets mopped off the bowl.
Professional Technique
The defining technique is emulsifying the purée by hand at the end of cooking. Fava starch releases into the liquid as the beans collapse, and beating incorporates air while dispersing the olive oil into that suspension as fine droplets. The result is a sauce structure, not a mash: glossy, homogeneous, stable as it cools. That is why the oil goes in off the heat in a thin stream, and why a blender ruins it, shearing the swollen starch granules and releasing free amylose that turns the purée gummy.
The second technique is the deliberate separation of the two cooking media. The fava cooks in unsalted water so the skins soften fully, because sodium and calcium strengthen the pectin in legume cell walls and leave the beans grainy. The chicory cooks in heavy brine for the opposite reason: salted water cooks the greens fast, holds their chlorophyll and draws part of the bitter sesquiterpene lactones out. Two pots, two chemistries, one plate.
Texture and Moisture Control
Water management decides this dish. The purée must be loose enough to fall from a spoon while hot, because it tightens noticeably within five minutes in the bowl as the starch retrogrades. Aim for a consistency that looks slightly too slack in the pan. If it is soupy, drive off the excess over low heat rather than adding more beans, beating as you go so the extra cooking does not break the emulsion.
On the chicory side the enemy is retained water. Boiled greens hold a surprising volume of liquid in their hollow stalks, and any that reaches the purée thins it and leaves the plate grey. Press gently, let the steam escape on a tray, then dress while the leaves are hot and their surface still open enough to absorb oil. Greens dressed cold sit in a slick instead of taking it up.
Temperature spread is the last control: the purée warm, the chicory barely tepid, the finishing oil at room temperature. That difference keeps the raw oil fragrant and stops the bitterness of the greens flattening out.
Professional Mise en Place
Almost all of this can be done in advance, which is why it works as a side for a larger meal. Only the dressing of the greens and the final pour of oil belong to the last minute.
Equipment and tools
Heavy bottomed saucepan with a lid, for the beans
Large stockpot for boiling the chicory, and a spider or tongs
Sturdy wooden spoon for beating the purée, no blender
Colander and a flat tray for draining the greens
Bowls warmed to about 120°F (50°C), not hot
Prepared ahead
Beans soaked overnight, drained and rinsed, up to 24 hours ahead
Fava purée cooked and beaten, up to 3 days ahead, refrigerated
Chicory washed, trimmed and split, held wrapped in a damp cloth for a day
Chicory boiled and drained, up to 1 day ahead, undressed and refrigerated
Finishing oil decanted, garlic sliced, peperoncino crumbled
Service setup
Purée held warm and covered, loosened with hot water to the right fall
Greens rewarmed in a pan with a splash of their cooking water, then drained
Oil, flaky salt and pepper mill within reach of the pass
Bread sliced and grilled at the last moment so it goes out hot
Chef Tips
Buy peeled split fava, fave decorticate, not whole dried fava with the skins on. Whole beans carry a thick indigestible seed coat that never breaks down and has to be slipped off one by one after soaking, an hour of work for no better result.
Taste the oil on its own before you commit to it. A robust Coratina from the Murgia has a peppery catch at the back of the throat that stands up to the bitterness of the chicory, while a soft delicate oil disappears under it. This is the one place where spending more changes the plate.
If wild chicory is unavailable, catalogna is the closest substitute and is sold in most Italian groceries. Dandelion greens, escarole and the outer leaves of radicchio all work, but each is less bitter, so cut the boiling time by a couple of minutes and hold back a little salt.
Make the purée a day ahead if you can. It improves overnight as the starch fully hydrates, and reheating with a splash of water and a fresh beating brings it back better than it was. It is one of very few vegetable preparations that is genuinely better on the second day.
Common Mistakes
Salting the beans at the start. Sodium reinforces the pectin in the cell walls and the skins stay chalky however long you cook. Use plain water and season only once the beans have collapsed.
Using a blender or food processor. The blades shear the swollen starch granules and release free amylose, which turns the purée gluey and makes it set hard as it cools. Beat it by hand with a wooden spoon.
Letting the pot catch on the bottom. Fava starch settles and scorches fast, and one burnt patch flavours the whole batch. Keep the heat very low and scrape the base every ten minutes.
Boiling the chicory in unsalted water. The greens turn dull, lose more colour and taste noticeably harsher, because the bitter compounds leach out far less efficiently. Use a heavily salted rolling boil.
Wringing the greens dry. Twisting boiled chicory crushes the stalks into a compacted wet mass with no texture. Press once with the back of a ladle and let the rest of the steam escape on a tray.
Treating the oil as a garnish. A thin drizzle leaves the two halves of the plate unconnected, and serving the purée straight from the refrigerator makes it worse. Serve warm, around 140°F (60°C), with a full tablespoon of oil per portion poured into the well.
Wine Pairing
Malvasia Bianca di Basilicata IGT: The local everyday white and the most natural match here. Its gentle lift of white flowers and ripe pear sits beside the sweetness of the fava, while the dry finish and moderate acidity keep it from competing with the bitterness of the chicory. There is enough weight in the glass to carry the raw olive oil, which lean austere whites leave standing alone on the palate.
Matera Greco DOC: From the hills around Matera, an hour from where this plate belongs. Greco brings firmer structure and a saline, faintly smoky mineral finish that mirrors the limestone the chicory grows on. That salinity shortens the bitterness of the greens rather than prolonging it, and the brisk acidity cuts the coating richness of the purée.
Grottino di Roccanova Bianco DOC: A small Lucanian appellation whose whites are built on Malvasia with Chardonnay and Trebbiano, aged in cellars cut into sandstone. Rounder and softer than the Greco, with almond and a faint honeyed edge. Choose it when the chicory is very bitter or the oil particularly peppery, because its texture cushions both without dulling them.
Locorotondo DOC: The white of the Murgia plateau itself, from Verdeca and Bianco d'Alessano, pale and bone dry with green apple and a light bitter almond close. It is understated, which is the point with a dish of two ingredients: it refreshes and steps back, and the trace of bitterness on its own finish runs alongside the chicory instead of fighting it.
Aglianico del Vulture Superiore DOCG: The red option, and it needs a young bottling served cool at about 59°F (15°C). Aglianico on volcanic soil keeps high acidity and firm but fine tannin, and at that temperature its sour cherry and ash character meets the bitter greens on level terms. Pour it when the dish is the centre of the meal with bread and cheese.
Storage & Reheating
Refrigerator: keep the purée airtight for up to 4 days, with a film of olive oil over the surface to stop a skin forming. Store the boiled chicory separately and undressed, covered, for up to 3 days. Never store the two together: the greens keep releasing water and turn the purée grey within a day.
Freezer: the purée freezes well for up to 3 months, portioned flat in bags, and should thaw overnight in the refrigerator. Do not freeze the chicory, whose cell walls rupture on thawing and come back limp with none of the bite the dish depends on.
Reheating: warm the purée over low heat with two or three tablespoons of water per portion, then beat it again with a wooden spoon until glossy. It looks broken at first and comes back completely. Reheat the greens for one minute with a splash of their own cooking water, drain, and dress with fresh oil only then. Never microwave the greens, which steams them to a pulp.
Nutrition
Estimated nutrition per serving, based on 4 servings as a side dish:
Calories: 520 kcal
Total Fat: 26 g
Saturated Fat: 3.6 g
Trans Fat: 0 g
Unsaturated Fat: 21 g
Cholesterol: 0 mg
Sodium: 640 mg
Total Carbohydrates: 52 g
Fiber: 18 g
Total Sugars: 5 g
Added Sugars: 0 g
Protein: 24 g
Lactose: 0 g
Main micronutrients: folate 420 mcg; iron 7 mg; potassium 1250 mg; vitamin K 190 mcg; vitamin A 310 mcg; magnesium 120 mg
The dish is naturally vegan and contains no lactose. Values are estimates and move considerably with the finishing oil poured at the table, which adds about 120 kcal per tablespoon. Most of the salt in the chicory water is discarded with it.
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