Soramame to ebi no marine sarada / marinated fava bean and prawn salad

The sharp taste of lemon softens after several hours. Finely chop onion for a chunky texture with a straightforward flavor, or grate it for a juicy dressing with a milder taste.

<Ingredients>

10-12 pods (approx. 400 g) fava beans
7-8 prawns
1/3 celery stalk
1/2 small or 1/4 medium onion
Several parsley leaves (optional)
1/3-1/2 large lemon
1 tbsp olive oil
Generous pinch salt (not in photo)
Black pepper (not in photo)
1 tbsp dry white wine (to blanch prawns; not in photo)


<Directions>
1.

Clean prawns with potato starch, rinse, and set aside.

2.

Shell fava beans, and boil for 2 minutes.

Remove from boiling water (save water), and let cool.

3.

To the water used for fava beans, add white wine, and boil prawns.

When color turns pink, drain, and let cool.

4.

In the meantime, finely chop onion, celery and parsley.
For milder flavor, grate onion.

5.

Put onion and celery in a bowl, add olive oil, lemon juice, salt (1/4 tsp max) and pepper, and mix well.

6.

Once fava beans are cool enough to handle, peel skin, add beans to onion & celery bowl, and mix well.

When prawns cool at least to room temperature, add to bowl, and mix well.

Add parsley, mix well, and refrigerate for a few hours.

<Notes>

• This dish, especially the dressing, tastes sour immediately after everything is mixed. But wait to add more salt. After marinating for a few hours, the flavor softens; at that point add salt if necessary.
• White wine is added to eliminate the fishy smell of prawns. Do not add too much white wine, as it would impart a strong fruity taste to prawns. 
• This dish tastes good the next day, too.

• Shown at right is the same dish with grated yellow onion and without parsley.