"That's Amore!" Pasta e fagioli ( original Italian Pasta and Beans recipe)

You knew it was Tuesday or Friday when you came home from school and you could smell fagioli (haricot beans) ceci (chick peas) or lenticchie (green lentils.) "BORING!" I would say... no longer... even the smell of one of these dishes has the power to fill me with a kind of nostalgia, a longing for those Winter afternoons when the house was warm, the windows were steamed up and the house was "alive" with jokes, laughter and love... and we were all together...

Today I cooked fagioli, Italian bean soup which, in my part of Italy we eat with pasta or served next to "Cime di Rapa" (a vegetable very similar to broccoli but quite bitter in taste. If you can't get hold of this vegetable, Calabrese will do. I had to Calabrese, and I cooked both dishes, to show you!)

I made this from scratch, as my mamma taught me, by soaking 400g ( just over 1lb) of dried haricot beans, overnight. My mother would often make cavatelli ( a type of handmade pasta) to go with pulses. Fresh pasta changed the texture and flavour of the dish quite dramatically and the fact that mamma had made each cavatello for us, with love, certainly made it taste very, very special: "Con amore"... "With love!"

Pasta e Fagioli

Serves 7-8

Ingredients:

400g ( just under 1lb) dried haricot beans

2 cloves garlic

celery (as much as you like)

3-4 fresh cherry tomatoes

or 2 plum tomatoes

(tinned will do)

3-4 big glugs olive oil

salt

400g ( just under 1lb) cooked pasta

For the bacon and tomato sauce

to be later added to the cooked beans:

2 glugs olive oil

1 clove garlic, chopped

some pancetta, diced

or bacon

(can omit meat if you are making a

vegetarian version)

1 chilli pepper

(optional)

5 cherry tomatoes

salt

black pepper

My grandmother's very old terracotta pot.
I remember her cooking beans in it.
Beans cooked in terracotta taste delicious.

I soaked my beans overnight. This morning, I changed the water and covered my beans with more fresh water. You need a lot of water, as the beans will expand during cooking. Next, I added 4 cherry tomatoes, halved, three stick of celery, two garlic cloves and a generous portion of olive oil. I cooked my beans on a moderate heat for an hour and half (they have to be really soft, before you can eat them.)

All the ingredients went in the pan, in cold water

One thing I learnt from my mother is that you don't stir pulses with a metal spoon, as this will alter the temperature in the pan and stop the cooking process and, another thing: if your beans have soaked up all the liquid, you will need to add hot water, not cold!

LATER...

Once I knew my beans were ready, I made a very quick sauce, using garlic, pancetta (or bacon) cherry tomatoes, one smallish chilli pepper, salt and lots of black pepper, cooked in really hot olive oil, for ten minutes. I added this to my beans, at the end of cooking, for a really delicious and interesting taste.

Some like it hot!

Making the sauce

I cooked some  "casarecce" pasta, which has good texture and flavour, (use short pasta for this, like cavatelli or shells) drained the water and then added to my beans. I reserve some of your pasta water, in case the dish looked too dry.

My fagioli soup is looking very sexy!

I love casarecce

A big bowl of pasta e fagioli... you can

help yourself!

I also prepared a different version, using broccoli Calabrese, served next to some beans. I poured some fresh olive oil over this because... that's the traditional way to eat this... with crusty bread, of course. In Bari, you would use cime di rape ( broccoli di rape in Naples) instead of Calabrese.

This dish is easy and simple and an example of Mediterranean food at its best!

Buon appetito!



 

 Broccoli e fagioli