Dried Broad Bean Purée with Green Vegetables

This is a well-known dish from the southern Italian region of Apulia. Here food epitomizes the ‘Mediterranean’ diet, concentrating mainly on vegetables, grains, olive oil and fish. Although it is so simple, this is a star dish. In Italy they use one of their many different varieties of chicory as the vegetable to go with this purée — long dark green stems with leaves looking like a smaller rocket. If you cannot find the dried broad beans, you can use dried butter beans, but then you should