What Is Fava?

Fava — the name borrowed from the Italian for broad bean — is in the Turkish culinary tradition a golden, silky purée of yellow split peas enriched with olive oil and flavored with dill, lemon, and onion. It is one of the finest expressions of the Turkish zeytinyağlı tradition — dishes cooked in olive oil and served cold — and a cornerstone of the Aegean meze table, where its clean, mild flavor and beautiful golden color make it one of the most visually and palatally appealing of all cold appetizers.

A Dish of Ancient Lineage

Despite its Italian-sounding name — a borrowing that reflects the cosmopolitan culinary culture of the Ottoman Empire, which absorbed influences from across its vast Mediterranean territories — fava is a deeply Anatolian dish. Yellow split peas have been cultivated and eaten in the Aegean and Mediterranean regions for thousands of years, and preparations of dried legumes cooked to a smooth purée appear in the ancient culinary traditions of Greece, Turkey, Egypt, and the Arab world.

The dish is particularly associated with the islands of the Aegean — both the Turkish Aegean coast and the Greek islands — where the combination of olive oil and legumes has formed the backbone of the local diet for millennia. In Rhodes, Santorini, and along Turkey’s turquoise coast, some version of this dish has been eaten continuously since antiquity.

The Technique: Patience and Olive Oil

The quality of a fava depends on two things: the patience of the cooking and the quality of the olive oil. The split peas are simmered slowly with onion and water until completely disintegrated and smooth — a process that cannot be rushed without sacrificing the silky, even texture that distinguishes a great fava from a mediocre one. The cooked purée is then beaten with high-quality extra-virgin olive oil until it emulsifies into a creamy, smooth consistency, seasoned with salt, and spread into a flat serving dish.

Once chilled and set, fava is served drizzled generously with more olive oil, scattered with fresh dill, raw red onion, and capers, and accompanied by lemon wedges. The combination — mild, creamy legume purée against the sharp green freshness of dill, the pungency of raw onion, the brine of capers, and the acidity of lemon — is a masterclass in balancing flavors through contrast.

Fava on the Modern Table

Today, fava is experiencing a well-deserved renaissance as part of the broader global interest in plant-based Mediterranean cooking. Its combination of high nutritional value, beautiful presentation, and depth of flavor makes it an ideal dish for modern tastes, and it has found admirers far beyond Turkey’s borders. Yet in its homeland along the Aegean coast, it remains what it has always been: a simple, honest, deeply satisfying expression of the region’s ancient culinary wisdom.

Ingredients

• 2 cups dried yellow split peas (soaked for 4 hours or overnight)
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 4 cups water or vegetable broth
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Fresh dill or parsley for garnish
• Lemon wedges (optional)

Instructions

1. Drain the soaked split peas and rinse well.
2. In a pot, combine peas, chopped onion, and water or broth. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer gently until peas are very soft and falling apart (about 45 minutes to 1 hour).
3. Remove from heat, discard the onion.
4. Puree the peas with olive oil until smooth and creamy using a blender or immersion blender.
5. Season with salt and pepper.
6. Transfer to a serving dish, drizzle with extra olive oil, and garnish with fresh dill or parsley.
7. Serve chilled or at room temperature with lemon wedges on the side.

Not the Bean — the Velvet

In Turkey, fava is a meze of yellow split peas (or dried favas) cooked to collapse with onion and olive oil, then set into a smooth pâté, sliced and dressed with lemon, oil and dill. Aegean tavernas serve it in pale golden diamonds beside rakı. Its Greek island twin is served warm and loose; the Turkish version’s pride is that firm, sliceable silk — a purée with posture.

Getting the Set Right

• Cook the split peas past tender into surrender — they should mash at a glance.
• Blend while hot; the purée must be genuinely smooth, since every lump survives to the final slice.
• Pour into an oiled dish and chill undisturbed — the starch does the setting, no gelatin involved.
• Too loose after chilling? The purée was too wet: simmer the next batch drier, until a spoon leaves a slow-closing trail.

Fava FAQ

What do you eat it with?

Lemon, good olive oil, dill, and its constitutional partner: rakı. On a spread it stands beside haydari and şakşuka. Red onion crescents on top are Aegean orthodoxy.

Vegan?

Completely — one of the oldest vegan dishes on the Turkish table, centuries before the word existed.

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