Pasta e fagioli: The Authentic Recipe

Frank10 January 2013Naples and Campania, pasta, pastas, soups and risottos/primi piatti, Soups104 Comments

Pasta e fagioli, or pasta and beans, which goes by the amusing nickname ‘pasta fazool‘ in Italian-American slang, is one of the most internationally famous dishes in the entire Italian repertoire. It is a victim of its own success, however, too often made badly—very badly—which is why I would never order this dish in a restaurant outside Italy. The real thing, however, is not at all hard to make at home. In fact, it is a great standby for weeknights where you don’t have much time and need to whip up something quickly. And the results are really wonderful on a cold winter night.

There are lots of authentic variations on the dish—the recipe varies from area to area and, I would dare say, from family to family—but here is the way I like to make it:

Ingredients

For 4-6 servings

100g (4 oz.) pancetta
2 or 3 garlic cloves, slightly crushed
A sprig of fresh rosemary
A peperoncino (optional)
Olive Oil
3-4 canned tomatoes, plus a bit of juice
500g (1 lb.) (or one large can) cannellini beans, pre-boiled dried or canned, drained
Water or homemade broth
500g (1 lb.) ditali or other soup pasta (see Notes), parboiled
Salt and pepper, to taste
Grated pecorino cheese

Directions

If pre-boiling the beans, pre-soak them overnight in abundant water. Simmer them the next day until tender, about an hour or so depending on how old your beans are, seasoning with salt towards the end of cooking. (If you like, you can add a garlic clove and a sprig of parsley.)

Fry the pancetta, cut up into cubes or lardons, in olive oil until just beginning to brown, then add the garlic cloves and rosemary. (You can also add a peperoncino at this point if you like some spice.)

When you start to smell the garlic and rosemary, add the canned tomatoes, which you should crush in your hands as you add them to the pot. Simmer until the tomatoes have separated from the oil.

Then add your cannellini beans, allow them to simmer for a minute or two to insaporire (absorb the flavors of the tomato and other ingredients) and then add water (or broth) and partially cooked pasta (see below). The amount of liquid depends on how ‘soupy’ you like your pasta e fagioli, but I would add at least enough to cover the ingredients by 5cm/2in, as the pasta will absorb quite a bit.

Continue simmering, squashing some of the beans against the side of the pot so that they ‘melt’ into the liquid and thicken it, until the pasta is fully cooked. Add more liquid if things begin to dry out.

I like to mix in a bit of grated pecorino cheese to enrich the soup before serving. Serve topped with you choice of additional grated cheese, freshly ground pepper and/or un filo d’olio.

Notes on Pasta e fagioli

Cannellini are the classic choice for pasta e fagioli, but you can use other kinds of beans if you like. In fact, just about any legume could do, although the most typical alternatives would be pintos or cranberry beans. By the way, canned beans are perfectly acceptable, but do remember to drain and wash them well before adding them to the pot. The canning liquid would otherwise give the dish an ‘off’, artificial taste. One legume that I would not try this way are peas; their flavor is too delicate to stand up to such a robust, rustic treatment. Try instead this delicate pasta e piselli dish with just onions, parsley and broth.

And, of course, the choice of pasta can vary, although small, stubby pastas work best. I personally like ditali (as shown above) but small shells or ‘elbows’ would work well. In Italy, it is very common to use the odds and ends of different pastas you have around, called pasta mista or pasta spezzata. It’s a great way to use up those last few pieces of pasta at the bottom of the box. Collect them in a towel or bag, then smash them with meat pounder or the back of a skillet until they’re all about the same small size.

Some recipes call for adding the pasta directly to the soup pot without pre-cooking them. If you do that, however, be careful; I find that the pasta inevitably sticks to the bottom of the pot and can burn. And be sure to add quite a bit extra water as the pasta will absorb it readily as it cooks.

The variations are (almost) endless

There are nearly endless variations for pasta e fagioli, beginning with the proportions. You can add more or less of each ingredient according to taste. This is why measurements for this thing are almost senseless, except as a starting point. The dish can be made in bianco, or entirely without tomato. Other recipes call for just one or two tomatoes for color, others add lots of tomato.

If you prefer a vegetarian dish, you can omit the pancetta, which I often do. And if you wish to ‘veganize’ it, don’t use cheese either. Or you can use crumbed sausage meat instead of the pancetta. Salt pork also works well, as does something called ‘country ham’. Regular cooked ham, however, does not give you the right flavor for this dish, IMHO. You can make the soup even meatier by using broth. Personally, I find that with all the other flavors going on, water is not only acceptable but preferable. If you’ve made the beans yourself, do use the cooking water from the beans, which have wonderful flavor.

You can make a milder, more ‘refined’ version of this dish by starting off with a flavoring base of onion, carrot and celery rather than garlic, rosemary and red pepper. In this case, you could also substitute parmesan for the pecorino. Personally, I prefer this heartier, earthier version.

But…

But even if this dish can be highly personalized, there are some limits beyond which you are killing the ‘spirit’ of the dish and, as I mentioned, this soup is all too often subject to culinary abuse abroad. An authentic pasta e fagioli should not be brothy, as you will often see when this and other pasta and legume dishes (including minestrone) are made outside Italy. Rather, you should end up with a thick soup that is almost a stew. Ignore recipes that use this soup as a dumping ground for all sorts of extraneous dried herbs or overwhelm the other flavors with too much tomato. For example, this recipe for pasta e fagioli, supposedly from the Olive Garden restaurant chain, is a true monstrosity, more of a bad chili than an Italian soup.

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