Bissara
A Moroccan winter breakfast, ladled from huge street pots in Fez and Chefchaouen. It is among the simplest dishes there are — fava beans, garlic, olive oil, cumin — and for that reason every detail shows. Two things must be right: use split fava beans without skins, because the skins never break down and stay in the purée like paper, and thin it with hot cooking water, never cold water, which cools and dilutes it.
Your own work in that: 20 min.
- Soaking the beans 720 min
- Cooking 60 min
- Blending 10 min
- Serving 10 min
Step by step
0 / 8 doneSoak the beans overnight
Cover the split fava beans with cold water and soak overnight, then drain. Even split beans need soaking — without it the cooking takes over two hours and the beans still break down unevenly.
Ingredients: 350 g split fava beans · 1500 ml water · 6 cloves garlic · 80 ml olive oil · 2 tsp cumin · 2 tsp salt · 1 pcs bay leaf
Split and skinless — with skins the purée never goes smooth.Cook with garlic until collapsed
Cover with fresh water, add whole garlic cloves and the bay leaf and cook 50–60 minutes. The beans must break down completely — this is not a soup with beans in it but a smooth purée, and intact beans are a fault.
Ingredients: 350 g split fava beans · 1500 ml water · 6 cloves garlic · 80 ml olive oil · 2 tsp cumin · 2 tsp salt · 1 pcs bay leaf
Cooked to collapse — whole beans are a fault here.Skim for the first quarter hour
Skim off the grey foam for the first 15 minutes. Fava beans produce plenty of it, and left in the pot it makes the purée murky and gives it a scummy taste instead of the clean flavour of the beans.
Ingredients: 350 g split fava beans · 1500 ml water · 6 cloves garlic · 80 ml olive oil · 2 tsp cumin · 2 tsp salt · 1 pcs bay leaf
Salt only near the end
Add the salt for the last 10 minutes of cooking. By then some of the water has evaporated, so it is easier to judge the amount — purée salted at the start can easily end up too salty once reduced and blended.
Ingredients: 350 g split fava beans · 1500 ml water · 6 cloves garlic · 80 ml olive oil · 2 tsp cumin · 2 tsp salt · 1 pcs bay leaf
Blend with oil and cumin
Remove the bay leaf and pour about 250 ml of the hot cooking water into a jug. Blend the beans and garlic with the rest of the cooking water, adding the oil and cumin. Blend long, at least 2 minutes — bissara must be completely smooth, like thick cream, with no trace of grain.
Ingredients: 350 g split fava beans · 1500 ml water · 6 cloves garlic · 80 ml olive oil · 2 tsp cumin · 2 tsp salt · 1 pcs bay leaf
Adjust with the cooking water
The purée thickens fast off the heat. Thin it with the reserved hot cooking water, never cold — cold water cools it and dilutes the flavour, and bissara must be thick and hot at once.
Ingredients: 350 g split fava beans · 1500 ml water · 6 cloves garlic · 80 ml olive oil · 2 tsp cumin · 2 tsp salt · 1 pcs bay leaf
Reheat before serving
Return it to the pan and heat, stirring, until it starts to blip. Bissara must be very hot — it is a winter-morning dish, and lukewarm it loses its charm, as the oil on top barely smells of anything.
Ingredients: 350 g split fava beans · 1500 ml water · 6 cloves garlic · 80 ml olive oil · 2 tsp cumin · 2 tsp salt · 1 pcs bay leaf
Make a well and pour in the oil
Ladle into shallow bowls, make a well in the centre with a spoon and pour oil into it. Dust with paprika, cumin and chilli and squeeze over lemon. Serve with flatbread — bissara is eaten with bread, not a spoon.
Ingredients: 4 tbsp olive oil · 1 tsp sweet paprika · 1 tsp cumin · ½ tsp chilli flakes · 1 pcs lemon
A pool of oil in the middle — eaten with bread, not a spoon.
Before you start
Fava beans, not peas
Bissara is made with dried split fava beans, distinctly earthy and faintly bitter. Split peas look similar and cook the same way but give a sweeter, noticeably different purée — good, but a different dish.
Cumin twice
Cumin goes in twice: once in the blender, where it dissolves into the fat and builds the background, and once on top, where it stays sharp and aromatic. The same principle as spices in an Indian dal.
Three days, but it sets
Bissara keeps three days in the fridge and firms into a mass you could cut with a knife. That is normal — loosen it with boiling water as you reheat and add fresh oil, since yesterday's loses its aroma.
