Fava Bean Salad with Lemon Vinaigrette and Shaved Cheeses

I purchased some fava beans at the market a few weeks ago because they looked cool - long and stringy like the Witch's fingers in the Wizard of Oz.  Apparently, they are a seasonal vegetable so I thought I'd give them a try.  I had no idea what I'd do with them - that's why they had been sitting in my refrigerator for so long.  Last night I finally cooked them and turned the beans into a salad thanks to Bobby Flay. 

After some research, I found it can be very labor intensive to remove the inedible outer shell.  The easiest way to purge the pod is to grill them; I put a few at a time on the George Foreman Grill.  This worked wonderfully!  I was eager to open the beans, a little too eager, and boy were they HOT!

I changed up Bobby's recipe because I did not have a few ingredients in the house, and only made enough for two salads.  

For the lemon vinaigrette dressing I used:
1 clove of garlic
juice from half a lemon
about a teaspoon of olive oil
salt and pepper to taste 

On a bed of red leaf lettuce I placed the de-shelled fava beans and topped it with the dressing and a mixture of freshly shaved Parmesan, Romano, and Asiago cheese I purchased from Trader Joe's.  We all eat with our eyes first and this salad was very uninspiring.  The fava beans tasted like Lima beans - not too exciting.  Honestly, the best parts were the dressing (which I definitely will make again) and cheese.

This dish would have been more interesting if there were other components to it.  If I purchased fava beans next spring, I will be a bit more creative and add more colorful ingredients to the salad.