I guess for the most people this italian classic is nothing new. I made it for the first time yesterday night. The days are getting colder and darker, time for comfort food.
I used a recipe by Felicity Cloake/GUARDIAN and her „How to cook the perfect………“. BTW, instead of dried Borlotti beans I used Tarbais beans LABEL ROUGE from the south of France, as I didn’t find Borlotti beans around the corner.
At the beginning I was a bit puzzled about the buzz concerning this dish from several food people. But at the end of the day I returned several times to the kitchen with a spoon and took a little from the pot, nibbling.
Note: I found out that it is impossible to find small macaroni on the german market, interesting. So I used other small pasta. But it turned out that this pasta sucked almost all the liquid, so I had to add more water. In my view this dish has to be a kind of soup, but other people may see it differently. Maybe you have to add more water or veggie/chicken broth at the end.
I just made this soup this past weekend as well, which was cold and rainy. It’s a shame you couldn’t find ditalini pasta, but for this soup, I use two pots. The big one to make the soup without the pasta and then a smaller pot that gets the almost finished soup and to which I add the already cooked pasta. Pasta will suck up all the water in the soup.
A sort of critique, from your picture it sure looks very tomatoey. I’m not sure the Italians use as much tomato. Also I couldn’t find borlotti beans, so I used cannellini instead and cooked them in an instant pot - 1 hour. Finally, use the water from the cooked beans for the soup.
Ahhhh - Pasta Fazool (the Italian American take on Pasta e Fagioli).
Such a great comfort food, particularly with a good amount of pecorino romano grated on top.
Your point about the consistency is spot on. It is a soup and not primarily a pasta dish.
Unlike a pasta dish, where the focus is on the pasta itself and the sauce an accompaniment, Pasta e Fagioli should have a more soup-like consistency. So addition of water or broth is best.
Fair argument concerning the use of tomato, but I love tomato, also in other stew dishes like “Ragu di Manzo”. Have a look there are a lot of variations of this classic recipe, also with a lot of tomato.
