Ful Medames at Home: 25-Minute Breakfast Beans

The tin of beans that has been sitting there since March

If you have a tin of fava beans in the cupboard and no idea what to do with it, ful medames is the answer, and it needs almost nothing else. Our ful medames recipe uses 400 g (14 oz) of canned or pre-cooked fava beans, 2 cloves of garlic, 1 lemon, 3 tbsp of olive oil and 1 tsp of cumin. Prep is 10 minutes, cooking is 25, and it serves 4 for breakfast with bread.

It is Egyptian in origin and now ordinary on Gulf breakfast tables too. The appeal is plain: it is warm, it has protein in it, and one small pot does the job. This post covers the method, the dressing ratios, and the things that make a bowl taste flat.

Warm the beans in their own liquid

Step one in the recipe is to warm the beans with a little of their liquid in a small pot, for about 5 minutes. Do not drain the tin completely. That cloudy liquid carries salt and starch, and it is what turns the mash into a loose, saucy bowl instead of a dry paste.

Keep the heat low. You are heating, not cooking. If the beans bubble hard they split into skins and mush, and you lose the bite you want from the beans left whole.

Dried fava beans are a different route: they need an overnight soak and a long simmer, and our recipe data gives no timing for that, so this post sticks to the tinned shortcut.

Mash less than you think

Once warm, press them with a fork. The recipe says to mash lightly and leave some beans whole for texture, and this is the step people overdo. A potato masher or a blender gives you a smooth puree, which is a different dish and closer to a dip.

Aim for roughly half crushed and half whole. The crushed part thickens the liquid and the whole beans give you something to chew. A good test is the spoon: if it stands up in the bowl for a second before slumping, you are there.

The dressing: garlic, cumin, lemon, oil

Stir in the crushed garlic, the cumin, salt and half the lemon juice, then leave it on the heat for about 2 minutes so the garlic loses its raw edge. The remaining lemon juice and the olive oil go on at the end, after you spoon the beans into a bowl. Oil added at the end tastes like oil; oil cooked in loses its fruitiness.

Here is a rough tuning guide for 400 g of beans:

<!-- VERIFY: the tuning amounts in this table are rules of thumb written for this post, not measured. -->

Canned beans differ a lot in salt, so add salt after tasting rather than before. Some tins are quite salty already.

What goes on top and what goes beside

The recipe garnish is diced tomato, optional. In many homes the bowl also gets chopped parsley, a few chilli flakes, a boiled egg or a spoon of tahini. These are common additions, not requirements. Keep the toppings to two or three; the beans should still be the main thing.

For scooping you want a flatbread. Warm pita works, and so does a roti or chapati if that is what you have in the house. If you want the Gulf version of the table, the khubz tannour post is the bread you would see next to it. A glass of laban on the side is a common pairing, and a shakshuka next to it turns a weekday breakfast into a brunch for guests.

Make it for a crowd or for one

Scaling is easy because the dressing is built per tin. For 8 people use 2 tins (800 g or 28 oz), 4 cloves of garlic and 2 lemons, but start with about 1.5 lemons of juice and taste. For one person, half a tin keeps in the fridge until the next morning.

Leftovers: cool them within about 1 hour, keep them covered in the fridge, and eat within 1 day, reheated until steaming hot. They thicken as they sit, so loosen with a splash of water when you reheat.

Fixes for the three common problems

1. Bland. It is almost always the lemon and salt. Add both in small steps and taste each time.
2. Too thick. Add 1 to 2 tbsp of the tin liquid or hot water and stir.
3. Watery. Simmer 2 minutes uncovered, then mash a few more beans against the side of the pot.

None of these needs an extra ingredient, which is the nice thing about this dish.

A breakfast rotation for the week

If you like the idea of one canned-bean breakfast per week, here is a way to space them out so nobody gets bored:

• Monday: ful medames with warm flatbread and tomato.
• Wednesday: shakshuka with the same bread.
• Friday: hummus and cucumber for a lighter morning.
• Weekend: whatever the family votes for.

If your household argues over this, the Degchi pantry check at degchi.matrixinn.net/#try lets you tick off what you have and see which dishes your cupboard can already make. Beans, garlic and a lemon are usually enough for this one.