Recipes and food adventures with Adam Roberts

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Pasta e Fagioli

The cookbook that I wrote almost fifteen years ago (!), Secrets of the Best Chefs, has a lentil soup in it so good, Smitten Kitchen wrote about it. That soup, which was taught to me by the late Gina DePalma, will live on in perpetuity as one of the great combinations of sausage, lentils, and tomatoes ever to exist in human history.

But, believe it or not, there’s another great soup in my cookbook, one that I haven’t made in a long time, but that’s nonetheless deserving of your attention. That’s the pasta fagioli taught to me by the great chef Anne Quatrano of Bacchanalia in Atlanta.

When I lived in Atlanta from 1997 – 2004 (college, law school), Bacchanalia was the most celebrated restaurant in town. Here’s a post from 2004 where I went there with my then-roommate and still-close-friend (and psychic twin: same birthday, same hospital, same year, didn’t know each other ‘til college), Lauren. The fact that Bacchanalia still exists — I just looked at their website, they still have the crab cake that blew my mind 20 years ago — is just incredible to me. Some good things just last and last.

Pasta e fagioli translates to “pasta and beans,” and Anne Quatrano’s recipe gives you a blueprint to follow with endless variations. For example, her recipe has fennel in it, I had Swiss chard, so I used the stems instead and then added the leaves later. She tells you to ball the Yukon gold potatoes with a melon baller, I just chopped them into cubes.

I did go to the trouble of cooking Rancho Gordo cranberry beans from scratch because I just really like the texture that you get: firm on the outside, creamy on the inside. I also used a different pasta shape than the one the recipe calls for: she says elbows, I used Sfoglini’s cavatelli.

Finally, I had leftover toasted breadcrumbs from my spicy cauliflower pasta, so that’s what I put on top, along with Parmesan (I also threw the rind into the broth). The result was hearty, healthy, and surprising (did I mention that there are turnips in there?). I also put in some honeynut squash.

So here’s a new soup to try for those chilly nights where you’re not sure if you want pasta or beans. Live your best life and have them both.

Pasta e Fagioli

A recipe adapted from Anne Quatrano for Secrets of the Best Chefs
Print Recipe Pin Recipe
Prep Time 30 minutes
Cook Time 30 minutes
Course: Appetizer, Main Course
Cuisine: Italian
Ingredients Method Notes

Ingredients
  

  • 1/2 sourdough boule crusts removed, cut into small cubes
  • 1/4 cup plus 3 tablespoons olive oil
  • Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • 1/4 cup finely chopped onion
  • 1/4 cup finely chopped celery
  • 1/4 cup finely chopped carrot
  • 3 cloves garlic peeled and thinly sliced
  • 4 baby fennel sliced in half, or 1/4 large fennel, cored and sliced into thin strips
  • 4 baby turnips peeled, or 1 large turnip, peeled and cut into bite-size pieces
  • 1/2 cup balls of peeled Yukon Gold potato scooped with a melon baller (or just cut into cubes)
  • 4 skinny baby carrots peeled and quartered
  • 1/4 cup cooked cranberry beans I used Rancho Gordo and cooked them in a separate pot
  • 1/4 cup cooked cannellini beans you can use canned
  • 4 to 6 cups good-quality chicken stock
  • 1/2 cup chopped turnip greens optional
  • 1/2 pound elbow-shaped pasta
  • Crushed red pepper flakes
  • Freshly ground Parmesan

Method
 

  1. Preheat the oven to 400 F. Toss the cubed sourdough on a rimmed cookie sheet with 1/4 cup of the olive oil and some salt and pepper. Bake, tossing every so often, until the croutons are golden on all sides. Remove from the oven and allow to cool.
  2. For the soup, begin by heating the 3 tablespoons of olive oil on medium heat in a large pot, Dutch oven, or saucier. Add the onions, celery, and chopped carrot and cook, gently, for a minute. Add the garlic and cook for 30 seconds more. Nothing should brown; it should just soften.
  3. Add the fennel, turnips, potatoes, baby carrots, and beans and stir. Season lightly with salt.
  4. Add the chicken stock and bring the liquid to a boil. Add the turnip greens, if using, and the pasta; lower the heat and simmer until everything is cooked, 10 to 15 minutes. Taste for salt and pepper; for heat, add a pinch of red pepper flalkes.
  5. To serve, ladle the soup into bowls and top with the sourdough croutons and a sprinkling of Parmesan.

Notes

My Alternative Version:
Use Swiss chard instead of fennel (or in addition to fennel). Slice the stems thinly and sauté along with the onions, carrots, and celery; chop the leaves and add them with or instead of the turnip greens;
Throw a Parmesan rind into the pot along with the broth;
Use all cranberry beans (no canned cannellini), especially if you cook them yourself;
When you add the turnips and potatoes, you can also peel and cube a honeynut squash and throw it in too;
Use cavatelli instead of elbows.

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