Left under a cloth for two hours, Delia Smith’s broad bean salad lets young beans soak up a garlicky sherry vinegar and mustard dressing. It’s a generous first course for 4, about 2½ hours from shelling to serving with 10 minutes of cooking. The beans go in hot from the pan, then crisp pancetta, shallots and herbs are scattered over.
Her How to Cook Book Two (1999) offers it as a starter or as one of several salads on a cold buffet. In the same book, her vegetable guide puts broad beans at their best from late June through July, and she wrote this salad to make the most of that short season. When she printed it again five years later, among the July recipes of her Kitchen Garden book, the metric amounts came first.
Mostly, though, it’s the sherry vinegar you taste, mellow and a little nutty against the sweet green beans. Each spoonful also brings salty shards of pancetta and the sharp crunch of raw shallot.
Delia Smith’s Broad Bean Salad with Pancetta and Sherry Vinegar
Course: SaladsCuisine: BritishDifficulty: Easy4
servings2
hours20
minutes10
minutes335
kcalYoung broad beans dressed while hot in sherry vinegar, garlic and mustard, then left to stand with the crumbled pancetta, chopped shallots and herbs. It’s the version printed on page 155 of her second How to Cook book, and it feeds 4 generously.
Ingredients
- For the salad:
1.8kg (4lb) young broad beans, shelled
110g (4oz) sliced smoked pancetta or smoked streaky bacon
1 tablespoon chopped mixed fresh herbs, such as parsley, chives, basil and thyme
2 shallots, peeled and finely chopped
1 level teaspoon salt, for the pan
salt and freshly milled black pepper
- For the dressing:
2 tablespoons sherry vinegar
1 large clove garlic, peeled
2 teaspoons Maldon sea salt
2 teaspoons mustard powder
5 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
freshly milled black pepper
Directions
- Pancetta: Heat the grill on its highest setting for about 10 minutes. Lay the pancetta on a sheet of foil and grill it 7.5cm (3in) from the heat for about 4 minutes, until it’s really crisp. Once it’s cool enough to handle, crumble it into tiny pieces.
- Beans: Put the shelled beans in a medium saucepan with the level teaspoon of salt and pour on just enough boiling water to cover them. When the water boils again, put the lid on, lower the heat and simmer gently for about 5 minutes, using a timer so they don’t overcook.
- Dressing: While the beans cook, pound the garlic with the sea salt in a pestle and mortar to a creamy paste. Work in the mustard powder, then the sherry vinegar and a good grinding of coarse black pepper, and finally whisk in the oil.
- Dress: Drain the beans in a colander, tip them into a serving bowl and toss them well in the dressing.
- Finish: Scatter over the pancetta, herbs and shallots, check the seasoning and mix everything once more.
- Rest: Cover the bowl with a clean cloth and leave it for about 2 hours before serving, so the dressing soaks right into the beans.
Notes
- Every 450g (1lb) of beans in the pod gives about 110g (4oz) once shelled, by Delia's own reckoning, so the 1.8kg here comes down to roughly 450g of beans.
- Without a pestle and mortar, crush the peeled clove on a board under the flat blade of a knife, a trick from her Complete Cookery Course. Then work the salt in the same way.
FAQs
How do I prepare older, bigger broad beans?
Blanch them in boiling water for 1 minute, then slip off the skins once they’re cool enough to handle. The beans split in two as the skins come away and then need only 2 to 3 minutes’ steaming, which is her tip for large beans in her How to Cook vegetable guide. I’d use that in place of the 5-minute simmer here.
Young or only slightly older beans can keep their skins on, since cooking them in water softens them, as the same guide explains. In the Complete Cookery Course she even admits she’d never have the patience to skin a whole bowlful.
Can I use frozen broad beans?
Yes, which is handy when the summer season is long gone. Use 450g (1lb) of frozen beans to match the shelled weight, which is my own maths, and simmer them for the time on the packet.
Delia uses the freezer too. Her One is Fun suggests frozen beans in winter, and How to Cheat at Cooking turns 500g of frozen baby broad beans into a quick warm side with olive oil, white wine vinegar and crispy bacon.
What can I use instead of sherry vinegar?
A good white wine vinegar is the nearest swap, which is my own call. Sherry vinegar, which Delia rates highly enough to sprinkle neat over salads and cooked vegetables, is sweeter and nuttier, so wine vinegar gives a sharper, plainer dressing.
Which other beans work in this salad?
Shelled borlotti beans, and Delia says so herself in her Kitchen Garden book. Simmer them for 20 to 25 minutes rather than 5, then dress them in exactly the same way.
How far ahead can I make it?
Up to a day, I’d say, as it’s a salad that’s meant to sit before serving anyway. Keep it covered in the fridge overnight, then take it out about half an hour before serving.
The pancetta softens a little by the next day, so you could keep it back and scatter it on at the end. Eat any leftovers within a couple of days.
Is there a Delia broad bean salad with bacon?
Yes, a smaller one for 2 in her Complete Cookery Course, with spring onions, tarragon, marjoram and parsley in a lemon and wine vinegar dressing, served on lettuce. It goes back to her Frugal Food of 1976, while One is Fun swaps the bacon for salami in a broad bean salad for one.
