Broad Beans with Garlic, Thyme and Poached Eggs

Ingredients:

3 large cloves of garlic, roughly chopped
4 tablespoons of olive oil
½ a red onion, sliced
5 sprigs of thyme, plus 2 more sprigs for garnish
Generous pinch of salt
Good grind of pepper
350g broad beans
1 tablespoon of capers, roughly chopped
150ml water
½ teaspoon of vegetable Bouillon powder, or ½ a stock cube
Juice of ½ a lemon
1 tablespoon of parsley, roughly chopped

Method:

Start by chopping the garlic. For this recipe I prefer not to crush the garlic, but to chop it relatively finely so that each piece is about the size of a grain of brown rice. This way you will get more of an intense and delicious hit of garlic.
Put the garlic into a pan with the olive oil, sliced onion and thyme and salt and pepper and put over a low/medium heat. You don’t want the heat to be too high as you want to cook these big flavour elements quite slowly so as to get maximum impact from them. Leave them over the gentle heat for about 10 minutes while you prepare your broad beans

Boil the kettle and pour into a pan placed over a medium heat, adding a good teaspoon of salt to the water. Bring to the boil and then add the broad beans. Let the water come back to a rolling boil before straining and running the broad beans under cold water.

Put half of the beans into a bowl and set aside. With the remaining half, use your fingers to pierce the outer shell of the bean and pop out the bright green centre. If you have very small broad beans, you may be able to skip this part, but if the beans are bigger, it is best to remove as many of the husks as possible.

Add the broad beans still in their coats to the sautéed garlic and onion with the chopped capers. Whisk together the water and the Bouillon powder or stock cube and add to the same pan. Turn up to a medium heat and simmer for about 5 minutes so that the liquid reduces by about half and flavours intensify.
Next, add the shelled broad beans and lemon juice and taste. 
Chop the parsley and extra thyme and stir through the broad beans. Make sure the beans are nice and hot before dividing between two plates ahead of poaching the eggs.

Boil the kettle again, pour the water into a pan and bring to a gentle simmer. Crack and really gently drop your eggs into the water and poach for about 1-2 minutes until the whites are no longer transparent. Remove with a slotted spoon. Rest the spoon on some kitchen paper to absorb any excess water. Place on top of your beans and serve.

Recipe from Rosannagh @ clovefoodco.com