Do you need to double-pod broad beans?

Double-podding sounds like a kitchen punishment. You take the beans out of the big furry pod, and then you take each bean out of its own pale jacket. It is fiddly, and it can be skipped, but there are moments when it transforms the bean.

Two layers, two jobs

The outer pod is the big, soft-lined green case. Everyone removes that. Inside, each bean has its own skin: thin and tender on young beans, thicker, greyer and leathery on mature ones. Wikipedia's broad bean entry notes that the outer seed coat of young beans can be eaten, and that beans are often parboiled to loosen that coating before it is removed.

So the question is really about the age and size of your beans, and the dish.

When the inner skins matter

• Big, mature beans. Their skins are tough and slightly bitter and dull the colour. Under them is a vivid green, sweet bean. Worth the effort.
• Purées and dips. Skins make a purée fibrous. Without them, it is smooth and silky.
• Salads and crostini, where the bean is the star and you want that bright colour.
• Delicate pasta and risotto, where a chewy skin would stand out.

When we skip it

• Tiny young beans, smaller than a fingernail. Their skins are barely there.
• Eating them raw. The same Wikipedia entry notes that in Rome broad beans are eaten raw with pecorino romano, which is one of the great spring snacks. For that, pick small, young beans and just pop them from the pod.
• Soups and stews where the beans cook long and soft anyway.
• Frozen broad beans in a weeknight dish: their skins can stay on if you don't mind a bit of chew.

How to do it quickly

1. Pod the beans from their outer cases. Do this sitting down, with company or a radio.
2. Drop them into a pan of boiling salted water. Bring it back to the boil and give them a very short blanch, until the skins look slightly loose and wrinkled.
3. Drain and plunge them into cold water, or run cold water over them, so they stop cooking and keep their colour.
4. Pinch each bean at one end, tear a little nick in the skin with a fingernail, and squeeze. The bright inner bean slips out. Do it over a bowl; they can fly.

It goes faster than you would expect once you get a rhythm, and it is a perfect job to hand to anyone hanging around the kitchen. More on the blanching step in what blanching vegetables actually does.

Dishes for double-podded beans

• Crushed beans on toast with olive oil, lemon, mint and pecorino.
• Spring pasta with peas, beans, lemon zest and butter.
• Spring stew such as Roman vignarola, with artichokes, peas and beans.
• Salad with ricotta, mint and good oil.
• Risotto finished with the beans at the very end.

Dishes where skins stay on

• Soups, such as a hearty minestrone.
• Slow-cooked beans with tomato and herbs.
• Fresh raw beans with pecorino and a glass of something cold.