broad bean leaves ?

[redwillowrose]

as I only have a small garden, I cant grow much so I have a veg box delevered, this week I had a bag of leaves, but I`m not sure what they are, when I rubbed the leaves and smelt them, they smell like brioad beans, I didn`t know you could eat the leaves from broad beans ? does anyone know please. thanks

[Odsox]

Hi.
You can certainly eat the tops of broad beans, they taste very much like the beans themselves. It all depends which leaves they are as I think the lower more mature leaves would be too tough to eat. Either way it's easy enough to test, just stir fry a sample for a few minutes and try for yourself.
You can also eat the immature pods in the same way as mange tout peas.
Hope that helps.

[MKG]

They're probably the tops of the plants pinched off to keep the dreaded blackfly away. Not only edible, but delicious.

[Firegirl]

Crikey what a revelation!
I've got a ton of these - apart from stir-frying, how else can you cook them, please? Like cabbage, steamed, in stew, raw?

[MKG]

All of those ways, and any other way you can think of - just don't cook them for too long or they collapse.

[redwillowrose]

thanks a lot, I`ll be trying them later !

[Firegirl]

Thanks MKG,
I'm constantly amazed by the amount of free food that's out there.