Here's how i make Ful -- the fava bean cooked in the Egyptian style. Actually, the ful bean (or horse bean as we call it in Egypt) is smaller version of the fava bean, but it's close enough that i don't have to go running to the Egyptian area in Astoria every time He WHo Must be Obeyed
wants some....I learned my Egyptian cooking in the oasis city of AL-Fayoum which is southwest of Cairo. It's an ancient city named after the crocodiles that used to abound there...thank goodness i didn't see any when i was there...i spent several months there trying to learn Arabic, learning how to cook, and just chillin'....(i really think that trip saved me from having a coronary or a stroke and when i got back i made some major changes in my style of working!)
Anyway...here's ful...
Take your beans and treat them as any other bean....pick the bad ones out and rinse and let them soak over night...
Throw that water off and put them on to cook just like any other bean. At this point i add a bunch of garlic cloves...not finely minced but quartered, let's say. Let the beans cook until tender. At that point i add some kind of flavoring like beef or chicken knorrs. I take a large onion and grate it into the pot so that the pieces are very fine and will disappear in the water.
Oh...you don't want too much water in the beans at this point. Just let the water cover the beans...Take out any extra water and reserve it on the side in case you need it later...you probably will...but watery ful is even less desireable than thick ful.
When you test the ful and see that they're tender, get your potato masher out and mash them...but not totally...because you're going to continue to cook the ful slowly and that will cause the bean to break down more.
When the mashed ful is cooking very gently, look and see if you need to add back a bit of your water...add about a 1/2 cup at a time and stir it in and let it cook...while that's going, heat up a frying pan and finely mince more garlic and onion....i'd say, about a head of garlic and a medium onion. Fry that slowly in a few spritzes of olive oil and some red pepper flakes and cumin. Let them cook slowly until golden and then toss all of that into your pot of ful. Add a bit more liquid if necessary. I do not add tomato but you can add some tomato paste to the onion/garlic mix and then your bean broth will have a more red color to it. Salt and pepper to taste. I add cilantro and flat leaf parsley to the pot at the end but i've not seen that done in Egypt.
You can have hard boiled egg minced up on top. You could have a fried egg on top too (Colombian style which is very delicious).
It's tradition to put a bit of vinegar and a bit more olive oil right on top after you've served the plate of beans...and, you must serve it on a flatish plate so that the eater can easily mash the ful more. It's always served with flat bread and loads of cool watercress on the side. You can splash some hot sauce on top also.
I'm sure there are other ways of cooking ful. I never learned the Cairo style but i prepared ful in Cairo for Cairo folks and they enjoyed them very much and laughed to no end about how my cooking tasted like their grandmothers' and how they would love to have my food when it's time to break fast after fasting......i was very proud and so was the General...i thought his chest would bust his buttons!
Enjoy and God bless
margo
) Also..i don't care for the smell and i have a very delicate nose..i can smell almost everything....
DD#1, who has been shopping for me the past couple of years, said the market doesn't have the good bulk items like it used to, so I hope we can find them.
All the fruit was really cheap, too. I also bought three bunches of cilantro to make Israeli chickpeas. YUM!
:sick: 
But Gwen, did you like them? To me the smell of cooked ful is like a sour dish rag....Yuuuuuuchhhhkkkkkkkkkk
The good news is, it only cost me under $5 to sample an exotic new dish. I keep coming back here to print your ful recipe, but I get distracted chatting.