Beautiful beans are like the girl or boy next door: friendly, familiar and often taken for granted.
Available to almost everyone, beans are easy enough to ignore, but life just isn’t as good or as simple in their absence. I didn’t know how much I loved beans until I moved away from home and had the chance to miss them. And then they were right there, waiting for me to discover them again.
There are fresh beans you can eat whole – think string beans such as haricots verts and their more conventionally full-figured cousins – and then there are shell beans, which must first be freed from their leathery husks, such as fava (broad) and lima (butter) beans.
If favas are very young, you can trim the tops and tails and sauté, grill or fry them whole, but most are too mature to eat this way by the time they hit the market.
Other fresh beans you might be tempted to shell are actually perfectly edible once you’ve deveined them of the fibrous floss that runs up their spines.
The United States and France are held captive by the irrational conviction that favas can only be enjoyed after the tedious process of popping each bean from its skin after it has been plucked from the pod it shares with seven siblings. More hot-blooded cultures – Italian, Spanish, Lebanese, Greek and British – don’t bother and that is to the beans’ advantage, as well as the cook’s.
In June, I will happily shuck fava beans tableside, dropping those plump little pearls into bowls of the greenest olive oil, then spooning them straight into my mouth.
In the Middle East, most fava beans are dried and then canned or sold in bulk as the base for ful medames, the Arab world’s best-loved breakfast dish.
Typically, the cooked beans are partially mashed and then served on a platter showered with olive oil, onions, garlic, lemon juice, parsley and cumin, and sometimes accompanied by eggs, cucumber, rocket and pickled vegetables. Lots of bread is the key here – ful is the beaniest of bean preparations and a little goes a long way.
“Fasolia” is a broad Greek term borrowed by Arabs, Turks and Ethiopians for bean dishes that are usually stewed well beyond the point of tenderness and coated in a savoury stew of aromatics. In Ethiopian cuisine, fasolia is a mild mash-up of beans, carrots and caramelised onions. In the Levant, Italian flat or Romano beans are used in loubia b’zeit – or “green beans with oil” – a rich side dish of floppy green beans that grow deep olive as they simmer with tomatoes and herbs until they collapse under the weight of their own magnificence.
String beans with some snap have equal merits, whether as a pickle or a bean salad. Nut and seed oils whisked into vinaigrettes are especially good as a dressing on these and they are as tasty warm as they are cold.
Last week, friends who grow their own beans brought me a tangle of Dragon Tongues – yellow and violet-speckled wax beans. I blanched them in salted boiling water, drained them and shocked them in ice-water before a quick sauté with lemon zest, shallots and crushed red peppers.
Off the heat, they were drizzled with butternut squash-seed oil and white balsamic vinegar to make the ultimate summery-snack alternative to French fries.
Nouf Al-Qasimi is an Emirati food analyst who cooks and writes in New Mexico
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Formula Middle East Calendar (Formula Regional and Formula 4)
Round 1: January 17-19, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 2: January 22-23, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 3: February 7-9, Dubai Autodrome – Dubai
Round 4: February 14-16, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 5: February 25-27, Jeddah Corniche Circuit – Saudi Arabia
The National's picks
4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
5.45pm: Raging Torrent
6.20pm: West Acre
7pm: Flood Zone
7.40pm: Straight No Chaser
8.15pm: Romantic Warrior
8.50pm: Calandogan
9.30pm: Forever Young
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
Indoor cricket in a nutshell
Indoor Cricket World Cup – Sep 16-20, Insportz, Dubai
16 Indoor cricket matches are 16 overs per side
8 There are eight players per team
9 There have been nine Indoor Cricket World Cups for men. Australia have won every one.
5 Five runs are deducted from the score when a wickets falls
4 Batsmen bat in pairs, facing four overs per partnership
Scoring In indoor cricket, runs are scored by way of both physical and bonus runs. Physical runs are scored by both batsmen completing a run from one crease to the other. Bonus runs are scored when the ball hits a net in different zones, but only when at least one physical run is score.
Zones
A Front net, behind the striker and wicketkeeper: 0 runs
B Side nets, between the striker and halfway down the pitch: 1 run
C Side nets between halfway and the bowlers end: 2 runs
D Back net: 4 runs on the bounce, 6 runs on the full
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
A MINECRAFT MOVIE
Director: Jared Hess
Starring: Jack Black, Jennifer Coolidge, Jason Momoa
Rating: 3/5
2025 Fifa Club World Cup groups
Group A: Palmeiras, Porto, Al Ahly, Inter Miami.
Group B: Paris Saint-Germain, Atletico Madrid, Botafogo, Seattle.
Group C: Bayern Munich, Auckland City, Boca Juniors, Benfica.
Group D: Flamengo, ES Tunis, Chelsea, (Leon banned).
Group E: River Plate, Urawa, Monterrey, Inter Milan.
Group F: Fluminense, Borussia Dortmund, Ulsan, Mamelodi Sundowns.
Group G: Manchester City, Wydad, Al Ain, Juventus.
Group H: Real Madrid, Al Hilal, Pachuca, Salzburg.
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