Italian Sardinian Fava Bean and Pork Stew | Favata Sarda
Favata is what northern Sardinia cooks for Carnival, and it is not a light dish by any reading of it. Dried fava beans, pork ribs, cured sausage, pork rind and a head of cabbage go into a deep pot with wild fennel and stay there the better part of a day. What comes out is thick enough to stand a spoon in, dense with gelatin drawn out of the rind, and perfumed by anise in a way no other Italian bean dish is. It is eaten in the Sassarese and in Gallura, usually at night and usually in quantity.
The recipe below is the traditional one, with the temperatures and timings made explicit rather than left to habit. Nothing has been modernised and nothing lightened, because both would destroy the point of it. What has been added is control: when to salt, how hard to let the pot move, how to treat the rind so it melts instead of staying rubbery.
Read the whole method before starting. Favata is not difficult but it is long, and the beans need a night of soaking before any cooking begins. Plan it across two days and it becomes a simple dish. Compress it into one afternoon and it will be a pot of hard beans and tough rind.
Yield: 6 generous servings. Soak: 12 hours. Prep: 45 minutes. Cook: 3 hours 30 minutes. Rest: overnight preferred. Difficulty: intermediate. Course: piatto unico. Region: Sardinia, the Sassarese and Gallura.
The Story
Favata belongs to Carnival for a practical reason rather than a symbolic one. The pig was killed in the cold weeks of December and January, and by the last days before Lent the household still held the parts that keep longest and sell worst: the rind, the trotter, the ribs, the sausage hung in the cellar, the cured belly. Lent was about to remove meat from the table for forty days. Favata empties the larder of pork immediately before that happens, and in Sassari, Ozieri, Tempio Pausania and the villages of Gallura it is still cooked in the same week.
The fava bean is the other half of the story. Before the potato reached Sardinia in quantity, dried fava was the winter staple of the interior, sown in autumn, dried on the threshing floor and stored in sacks against the months when nothing grows. It cost almost nothing, kept for a year, and turned to cream when cooked long enough. Every poor corner of the Mediterranean marries a stored legume with preserved pork, because that is what a household had in February. Favata is the Sardinian answer, and the quantity of pork in it is why it never reads as poverty food.
Wild fennel is what stops this being a generic bean and pork stew. Finocchietto selvatico grows on every roadside across the island, and Sardinian cooks use the feathery tops with pork the way other regions use sage. Its anise cuts straight through pork fat and perfumes the whole pot rather than sitting in one corner of it. The vessel matters too: a wide unglazed terracotta pot holds a low steady heat, never scorches the beans at the base, and stood on every hearth in the interior.
Ingredients
For the beans
Dried fava beans, whole and with their skins, 1 lb 5 oz (600 g)
Cold water for soaking, 8 cups (1.9 L)
Baking soda, 1/2 tsp (3 g), only if your water is very hard
For the pork
Pork rind, cotenna, in one sheet, 7 oz (200 g)
Pork ribs, separated into single ribs, 1 lb 2 oz (500 g)
Fresh Sardinian sausage with fennel seed, 10 oz (285 g)
Cured pancetta, in one piece, 4 oz (115 g)
Pork trotter, split, 1, traditional and worth including
For the vegetables and aromatics
Savoy cabbage, 1 small head, about 1 lb 5 oz (600 g)
Wild fennel tops, chopped, 1 cup loosely packed (30 g)
Yellow onion, medium, 1
Celery stalk, 1
Garlic cloves, 3
Ripe tomato, peeled and chopped, 1 medium, about 5 oz (140 g)
Fennel seeds, 1 tsp (3 g)
Bay leaves, 2
Small dried chilli, 1
Extra virgin olive oil, 3 tbsp (45 ml)
Coarse sea salt, 2 tsp (12 g), added late
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Water or light pork broth, about 10 cups (2.4 L)
For serving
Pane carasau or day old semolina bread, 6 slices
Pecorino Sardo maturo, grated, 2 oz (55 g)
Extra virgin olive oil, for finishing
Wild fennel tops, a little extra, chopped
Preparation
Step 1
Soak the beans. Put the fava beans in a large bowl, cover them with the cold water by three fingers and leave them at cool room temperature for 12 hours. If your kitchen is warm, soak them in the refrigerator so they do not ferment. Drain, rinse and discard any bean still stone hard. Do not peel them: the skins are what hold the beans together through three hours of cooking.
Step 2
Blanch the rind and break down the pork. Scrape the rind on both sides with the back of a knife to remove any bristle, then put it in a saucepan of cold water, bring it to the boil and let it go for 10 minutes. Drain, cool under the tap and cut into strips half an inch (1 cm) wide. This blanching is not optional: it removes the strong smell raw rind carries and starts the collagen breaking down, so the strips finish soft rather than rubbery. Cut the pancetta into lardons and separate the ribs.
Step 3
Render and brown. Set a wide heavy pot, terracotta if you have it, over medium heat with the olive oil and the pancetta. Let it render slowly for about 8 minutes until the fat has run and the pieces are golden, then raise the heat and brown the ribs in that fat, in two batches, turning them until they carry colour everywhere. Lift the meat out. Browning is where the depth of the pot comes from, so do not crowd the pan.
Step 4
Build the base. Lower the heat and add the chopped onion, celery and garlic to the fat left in the pot, with the bay leaves, fennel seeds and crumbled chilli. Sweat them gently for 10 minutes without colouring, then stir in the tomato and cook 3 or 4 minutes more, until it has lost its raw edge. Add half the wild fennel now and hold the rest back, so the pot carries both the cooked and the fresh side of the herb.
Step 5
Set the long simmer. Return the ribs and the pancetta, add the blanched rind strips and the split trotter, then the drained beans. Pour in water or light pork broth to cover by two inches (5 cm). Bring it slowly to the point where the surface barely trembles, around 190°F (88°C), skim the grey foam that rises in the first ten minutes, then set the lid ajar and hold it there for 2 hours. It must never boil: a rolling boil shreds the beans and tightens the pork.
Step 6
Add the sausage and the cabbage. Cut the cabbage into large wedges through the core so the leaves hold together, and cut the sausage into lengths of two inches (5 cm), pricking each once. Add both with the remaining wild fennel, push them under the surface and continue at the same gentle heat for another hour to 90 minutes. Only now, with the beans tender, add the coarse salt and the pepper. Salt at the start keeps fava skins tough.
Step 7
Rest and correct. The favata is ready when the beans have collapsed into a thick creamy body, the rind is soft enough to cut with a spoon and the meat is falling off the ribs. Take the pot off the heat, lift out the bay leaves and trotter bones and let it stand uncovered 30 minutes. Better still, keep it overnight: the fat sets, the flavour settles and the dish improves. Correct the salt the next day, once the liquid has stopped reducing.
Plating
Favata is served hot in deep bowls and served generously. Warm the bowls first, because the stew carries a great deal of gelatin and thickens on cold ceramic. Put a slice of day old semolina bread or a piece of pane carasau in the base of each bowl, ladle the beans and their liquid over it and let it soften. Then arrange the meat on top so every portion gets a rib, a length of sausage and a few strips of rind.
Finish with grated Pecorino Sardo, a thread of raw olive oil and a pinch of the fresh wild fennel you held back. Black pepper goes on at the table. Nothing else belongs on it: no parsley, no chilli oil, no cream. Served as a piatto unico it wants only a plain green salad afterwards.
Professional Technique
The technical centre of favata is the conversion of collagen into gelatin, and the rind does most of that work. Pork rind is close to pure connective tissue, and held between 180°F and 195°F (82°C and 90°C) for three hours it dissolves into the liquid and gives the dish a body bean starch alone cannot produce. That is why the pot must never boil: above a gentle simmer the proteins contract and squeeze out moisture faster than the collagen converts, leaving dry ribs in thin liquid.
The second technique is salt timing, and mistiming it ruins more bean dishes than anything else. Sodium and calcium ions both stabilise the pectin in a fava skin, which is why beans cooked in salted or very hard water stay firm long after they should have softened. Salt goes in only once the beans have given, and if your water is hard a half teaspoon of baking soda in the soak raises the pH enough to let the skins break down.
Texture and Moisture Control
A finished favata should be thick without being a purée. Roughly a third of the beans will have broken down and thickened the liquid, while the rest stay whole inside their skins, and it is the mixture of the two that gives the dish its texture. That comes from heat control rather than stirring. Stir a bean pot often and you shear the beans apart; leave it alone and let the convection of a bare simmer do the work, running a spoon along the base every twenty minutes to check nothing is catching.
Moisture is lost steadily over three and a half hours, so keep the lid ajar and top up with hot water, never cold, if the level falls below the solids. Cold liquid shocks the starch and can stop the skins softening for good. On the second day the stew will set almost solid in the refrigerator, which is a good sign: that is the gelatin from the rind and trotter.
Professional Mise en Place
Almost everything happens in one pot over several hours, so the organisation is about sequence rather than speed. The only time critical moment is the salt near the end.
Equipment and tools
Wide heavy pot with a lid, terracotta or cast iron, at least 8 quarts (7.5 L)
Second saucepan for blanching the pork rind
Large bowl for the soak, twice the volume of the dry beans
Skimmer, wooden spoon and a sharp boning knife for the rind
Probe thermometer to hold the simmer precisely
Prepared ahead
Fava beans soaked overnight, drained and rinsed
Pork rind blanched and cut into strips, up to 2 days ahead
Onion, celery and garlic chopped into one container
Wild fennel chopped and split in two, base and finish
The whole favata cooked the day before, which is the traditional way
Service setup
Bowls warmed, since the stew thickens on cold ceramic
Bread sliced and the pecorino grated at the last minute
Pot held at a bare simmer, stirred only to check the base
Fresh wild fennel, olive oil and the pepper mill on the table
Chef Tips
Buy fava beans from a shop with turnover and check the date. A bean that has sat two years in a warehouse will not soften: current harvest beans are tender in three hours, old ones can still refuse at six.
If you cannot find fresh wild fennel, use the feathery tops of a cultivated bulb plus an extra half teaspoon of fennel seed, and use more of both than you think you need. The dried fronds sold in jars are close to flavourless.
Ask the butcher for the rind in a single sheet rather than scraps. It is easier to scrape and cut into even strips, and even strips cook at the same rate. If a trotter is available take it: it doubles the gelatin and costs almost nothing.
Make it the day before. This is not a preference, it is how the dish works. An overnight rest lets the fat set, lets the beans absorb the pork flavour, and turns a good favata into the one people remember.
Common Mistakes
Salting the pot at the start. Sodium stabilises the pectin in the bean skin, so beans salted early can simmer five hours and still have a resistant edge. Add the coarse salt only once the beans have turned tender.
Letting it boil. A rolling boil shreds the beans into a flat purée and tightens the ribs and sausage at the same time. The surface should barely tremble throughout.
Skipping the blanch on the rind. Rind added raw carries a strong barnyard smell into the pot and leaves a greasy layer on the surface. Ten minutes in boiling water removes both.
Peeling the fava beans. Skinned favas disintegrate within an hour and leave a smooth soup instead of a stew. Buy whole dried favas, not the split yellow ones sold for purée.
Shredding the cabbage. Thin ribbons vanish into the liquid in twenty minutes and add nothing but a sulphurous note. Cut it into large wedges through the core and add them only in the final stage.
Wine Pairing
Alghero DOC: The bottle from the right corner of the island, grown on the Nurra plain within an hour of where favata is cooked. Its reds are ripe and warm without heavy tannin, and that softness matters against a dish whose fat comes from rind and sausage rather than a seared crust. Enough acidity sits behind the fruit to keep the palate moving.
Campidano di Terralba DOC: Made from Bovale, one of the most rustic red grapes on the island, and rustic is what this pot wants. Its tannin is dry and faintly dusty, which scrubs pork fat off the palate, and its dark plum fruit stands up to the wild fennel. Serve it at cellar temperature, around 61°F (16°C).
Montepulciano d'Abruzzo DOC: The mainland answer when Sardinian bottles are not to hand, and a reliable one with cured pork. Montepulciano brings deep colour and soft tannin with low acidity, so it upholsters the dish rather than cutting through it. That works because the beans already supply the earthiness.
Tintilia del Molise DOC Rosso: An inland mountain red with a peppery, almost wild herb character that runs alongside the fennel instead of competing with it. Its tannin is firmer than most southern Italian reds and its acidity high for the latitude, which is what a bowl of beans and gelatin needs.
Cirò Rosso Classico DOC: Gaglioppo from the Calabrian coast, pale in the glass and far more tannic than its colour suggests. That combination of light body and grippy tannin is unusually useful against gelatin, which coats and dulls the palate. Its dried herb and orange peel notes lift the sausage without adding weight.
Storage & Reheating
Favata keeps better than almost anything else in the Sardinian repertoire and is genuinely better on the second and third day. Cool it uncovered within two hours, then refrigerate it sealed for up to 4 days. Leave the set layer of fat on the surface while it is stored, since it seals the stew underneath, and lift off what you do not want before reheating.
It freezes for up to 3 months, but freeze it without the cabbage if you can, because cabbage leaves turn limp and sulphurous once thawed. Use portion sized containers rather than the whole pot, leaving an inch of headspace. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator, never in a microwave.
Reheat in a heavy pot over low heat, adding hot water or broth as it loosens, and stir as little as you can. It will look far too thick coming out of the refrigerator: that is the gelatin and it melts back as it warms. Bring it to a bare simmer, hold ten minutes so the meat heats through, then correct the salt.
Nutrition
Per serving, based on 6 generous portions:
Calories: 720 kcal
Total Fat: 38 g
Saturated Fat: 13 g
Trans Fat: 0 g
Unsaturated Fat: 23 g
Cholesterol: 105 mg
Sodium: 980 mg
Total Carbohydrates: 52 g
Fiber: 18 g
Total Sugars: 7 g
Added Sugars: 0 g
Protein: 45 g
Lactose: 0.2 g
Principal micronutrients: folate, iron, potassium, magnesium, zinc, thiamine, vitamin B12, vitamin K
These figures are estimates for a piatto unico portion eaten with bread and a little pecorino. The sodium depends almost entirely on how salty the sausage and pancetta are, so taste before adding any salt of your own.
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