Roasted peppers with Kathleen Bellicchi

Pasta Fagiole serves 4 w/ leftovers

Late Summer Cooking Treasures

The last week of August in New England always brings the first cool fall like days with spanking blue skies and a few high white wispy clouds that look like ridged wet sand by the water’s edge at low tide.  My first impulse is to warm the kitchen with an early bounty of the fall season, a big pot of Pasta Fagiole.  The key ingredients are shell beans, red and white striped pods, at their peak of ripeness at summer’s end.  I grew up eating my Mom’s Succotash made with these beans (another delicious blog entry for another day).  The Bellicchi’s introduced me to a new world – eating Italian in Connecticut.

For a simple version of Pasta Fagiole go directly to Variations at the end of this blog.

Nail Soup

I’ve prepared Pasta Fagiole with a number of variations; the recipe below gives the deepest flavor.   Simmering the beans separately with the onion makes the most flavorful soup.  I learned how to maximize flavor from the simplest ingredients when we ate a Macrobiotic diet.  I often laughed and answered the question, “What’s for dinner?” with “Nail soup!”   I learned to sauté onions until golden brown, then add vegetables giving each a chance to let loose its essence, blending tastes to produce a deeply flavored yet simple dish of vegetables.

I like a brothy soup.  If you like a thicker creamier texture, omit the second addition of stock.

Pasta Fagiole is often served with small pasta tubes called Ditalini.  I also like thin spaghetti, angel hair broken in 3 inch pieces, or pasta rags.  Pasta rags are odd pieces of pasta leftover when you make homemade pasta.  I also love Zuppa Fagiole, Pasta Fagiole served without pasta.

Ingredients

3-4 pounds fresh shell beans (red/white stripped pods)

2 teaspoons olive oil

1 medium sweet onion

4 cups vegetable or chicken stock

4 cups chopped tomato pulp (5-6 tomatoes)

1 tablespoon olive oil

2 teaspoons chopped garlic (1-2 cloves)

1 bulb fennel

2 cups vegetable or chicken stock

Kosher salt to taste

Water to cook pasta

2 teaspoons salt

One-half pound pasta

Freshly ground black pepper

Shake of red pepper flakes (optional)

One-half cup basil leaves (10-12 leaves)

1 cup parmesan or other grating cheese

Prepare the beans

Shell beans, discard pods, peel and dice the onion.  Heat a soup pot over medium heat, add oil and onions so they sizzle, reduce heat to medium low and let cook for 4 minutes without stirring, the onions will brown a bit.  Add shelled beans and cook another 4 minutes then add stock, cover and simmer 30 minutes.  Check simmering beans occasionally to make sure the liquid doesn’t boil out. 

Old Wives Tales

Whenever food would begin to stick in our house my mother would say, “Oh, it’s going to rain (or snow)”.  I asked my mother who is 90, still a fabulous cook, and my faithful editor, if it had to do with barometric pressure and water absorption.  Mom said, “Oh, it’s an old wives tale but I hold it to be true”.   What do you think?

Make the soup base

While the beans are simmering, chop tomatoes.  There are options; you can quarter tomatoes, put them in a food chopper or processor and pulse 10-12 times (for ripe tomatoes); you can blanch tomatoes in boiling water for 10 seconds, plunge into ice water, peel skin off tomatoes, slice in half, squeeze juice and reserve, chop flesh.   Strain tomato water in a strainer and reserve, discard seeds.  Slice stalks off fennel bulb, slice bulb in half lengthwise.  Slice each half in three lengthwise pieces, stack on cutting board flat side down, slice into 6 lengthwise pieces, and slice across into quarter inch dice.

Heat olive oil in a large frying pan over medium heat, add garlic so it sizzles and quickly add tomatoes so the garlic doesn’t brown reduce heat a bit, and cook 4 minutes.  You want to keep the heat high enough so the tomatoes are bubbling yet not sticking, adjust heat as needed.  Add fennel, toss into tomatoes or stir, let cook another 5 minutes, add this mixture to the simmering beans along with the tomato water and stock.  Stir, taste, add salt if you wish, turn heat to low and barely simmer for 45 minutes. 

You can prepare to this point and refrigerate or freeze.  All bean dishes taste better after they have had time to steep a while.

Cook pasta

Boil pasta water in a large pot to give pasta plenty of room to roll around while it boils and not stick together.  Salt water when it boils, add pasta and cook according to package directions.  You don’t want al dente pasta in soup, at least I don’t.  Cook pasta so it is cooked through and not chewy. 

Serve Pasta Fagiole

Spoon drained pasta into soup bowls, ladle beans on top, tear a basil leaf or two into each bowl and stir into hot soup.   Grind pepper over soup, sprinkle red pepper flakes, and sprinkle cheese on top.  Cap off with a garnish of a large bright green basil leaf. 

Variations

• My sister-in-law Carol Ann makes Pasta Fagiole the way her mother did and says Carol Ann – “It doesn’t have ANY vegetables in it!  “Sauté up a few chopped garlic cloves along with a chopped onion (CA says onions don’t count as a vegetable) in olive oil, add 2-15 ounce cans of cannellini beans, a 28 ounce can of crushed tomatoes, 3 sweet and 3 hot Italian sausage patties crumbled, 4 cups water and let cook for 30-45 minutes.  “If you want soup, cook a pound of soup pasta separately, if you want a thick stew, throw a pound of pasta into the beans and tomato.  Serve it with lots of grated cheese.”  You can half the recipe, or make the whole recipe and freeze the leftovers.
• Start the soup with 4 ounces of pancetta cut in small dice over medium heat in the soup pan and brown until it gets crispy before adding onions
• Add 6 sausages sliced in 1 inch pieces to the onions after they’ve been cooking 2 minutes – your choice hot or sweet
• Zuppa Fagiole – follow directions for serving and omit the pasta
• Use any herbs or spices you enjoy – oregano, savory, rosemary, mint; I have a friend who loves Pasta Fagiole with saffron.  Add along with tomatoes to beans and let the flavors cook into the soup.