In the meantime, make sauce by mixing the oils with the pepper flakes, black pepper, vinegar and garlic. Drain beans and reserve 1 cup of the liquid (the rest of the broth can be used as a soup). Stir in the sauce. Place fava beans in a deep container. Add sauce and let marinate at least 3 hours or, even better, overnight.

23% of calories from fat.

The best way to serve this fava bean appetizer is in a small bowl or as a garnish. To eat fava beans you have to remove the tough outer skin, but everyone does this at table and then enjoys the tender bean. Offer at room temperature. Serves 6 to 8.

FAVA BEANS: Available in several forms. Fresh, hidden inside large green pods. Open the pods and extract the beans. The beans thenselves are also clothed in their own "seed coats" or skins, which are hard and tasteless. Unless the beans are very young and tender, these skins need to be removed.

Here is the best way to cook them: Boil the beans for about 10 minutes in lightly salted water. They should be quite tender inside their coats. Now they are ready to be peeled. Drain and let them cool under running water first. Two pounds of pods yield about 2 to 2 and half cups of beans. Discard the peel. They taste a bit like fresh lima beans.

Then there are the dried fava beans which are available year round at Chinese, Greek and Middle Eastern stores. They come without their pods, of course but you can get them with or without their skins. They taste somewhat like chestnuts after they have been cooked. I boil them for 2 minutes and then let them sitin hot water for 1 hour. Then boil them for for another 30 45 minutes or until they are just tender. The beans can be put in salads or or pureed and put into scrambled eggs.