Pasta e Fagioli
Pasta e fagioli is one of the most popular poor Italian dishes. It’s easy to make and extremely delicious. There is no right or wrong recipe for this one as every region has its own way of making this dish. The one I make it’s close to the Roman version of this dish.
Originally it’s made with dried beans but, because I don’t always have much time or I forget to soak the beans, my version is made with tinned beans. I normally use borlotti beans but, cannellini beans work equally well.
In order to give an extra kick of flavour in the soffritto I added a slice of guanciale which is a very common practice in the Roman cuisine and it’s beyond delicious. If you are vegetarian you don’t have to miss out on this delicious dish, you can simply a opt for a regular soffritto just with carrots, onions and celery.
Equally, if you can’t find guanciale feel free to use a big fat slice of pancetta. All we need here is the fat to melt in the soffritto
Ingredients
2 tins of borlotti beans
120g of pasta (small shape)
70g of concentrated tomato
1 stalk of celery
1 carrot
1 onion
2 rosemary twigs
600g of water + 250g of water on the side
1 slice of guanciale roughly 1cm thick (if you don’t have it use pancetta instead. If you are vegetarian just skip this ingredients)
Salt & Pepper
3 tbsp Olive oil
Step by Step
Prepare your soffritto by thinly chopping the carrot, celery and onion
In a deep pan add your olive oil and warm it up at medium heat for a few minutes. Add your onion, celery, carrot, rosemary and guanciale and sautè at medium low heat until the veggies are translucent
Add your tomato concentrate in the pan and mix. Add your drained borlotti beans season with salt and pepper and add your 600g of water
Bring to the boil, lower the heat and cover with a lid. Let it simmer gently for 20 min roughly
After 20 mins take out 2 ladles of soup out of the pan and use a mixer or a stick blender to blend them. Put the blended soup/bean mix back in your pan. This will give you extra creaminess at the end
Now it’s time to cook your pasta. I used pasta mista garofalo but any small shape of pasta works. Turn the heat up until your soup start boiling and add your pasta in
Make sure you have on the side the extra 250g of water. The pasta will cook according to the instructions and it will suck the moisture of the soup in order to do so. Mix frequently to avoid the pasta from sticking in the pan. If you feel that your soup is becoming too dense while the pasta cooks just add some extra water one ladle at a time. the 250g should be enough to give you a nice consistency but feel free to adjust according to your taste. The soup is meant to be quite creamy
Once the pasta is cooked take your pan off the stove and let is sit a bit before you eat it. This is one of those dishes that taste better on day 2 so don’t be afraid to make a bigger quantity
Enjoy
