Spring is in full swing at farmers markets, which means there are snap peas and fava beans everywhere you look. Chef Nestor Silva of Camélia, a French Japanese bistro in the Arts District in Downtown LA, shops for English peas and fava leaves that he'll incorporate into a new dish.
The raviole du Daphiné is stuffed with housemade ricotta and Gruyere cheese then topped with the verdant, blanched greens. He explains that the dish dates back to the Middle Ages and differs from its Italian counterpart.
"If you can imagine one big sheet of uncut raviolis, it's like six raviolis on one sheet," Silva says.
Fava leaves are sturdy and withstand heat better than pea tendrils. They also don't require as much effort as shelling the beans. To give the dish a Japanese spin, Silva replaces lemon zest in the filling with yuzu and finishes them with chrysanthemum oil and fried chrysanthemum leaves.
Nestor Silva, chef de cuisine at Camélia, says fava leaves are the unsung hero of the plant. Photo by Wyatt Naoki Conlon.
Zach Nichols runs Two Peas in a Pod with his mother, Lori Holt. Their 24-acre farm was the first to grow snap peas in California. He explains that fava beans are nitrogen fixating and part of the Fabaceae family. The plant pulls nitrogen out of the air and stores it in the roots which results in a strong plant and healthy soil.
The farm rotates growing brassicas in the winter with the summer beans and peas, mixing the soil microbes and fertilizer. "It's kind of a win-win," says Nichols. "Farming is more about farming the soil than the actual plant. If you have good soil, you're going to have a good plant." The favas will be available for the next three months at the market.
Lori Holt holds a bundle of fava leaves which she grows at Two Peas in a Pod, the farm she runs with her son, Zach Nichols. Photo by Gillian Ferguson/KCRW