Pasta e Fagioli II

This is the healthy version. Extra virgin olive oil. No lard or pig skin.

SERVES 4

If you chop and cook you can make this in forty minutes. If you want to make the orecchiette as well that’s another good hour.

TOP TIPS:

I like more vegetables than pasta, so I use less than fifty grams of pasta per person. I use a water based pasta made of semolina as it has more texture and doesn’t overcook so easily as dry or pasta or fresh egg pasta. Cook the pasta in salted boiling water for about five minutes then drain and add to the soup and let the pasta absorb the flavours for at least ten minutes.

 STEPS

Chop the onion, carrot and celery into small dice. Heat some extra virgin olive oil in a heavy casserole and sauté on a medium heat for five to ten minutes.

Whilst these are cooking prepare the rest of the vegetables. Peel and dice the potato, finely chop the two courgettes, quarter the pachino tomatoes, peel the stringy sides of the corallo beans and slice slightly on the angle, top the French beans and the blanch both the French beans and the corallo beans one after the other in lightly salted boiling water.

Add the potatoes to the pan and stir in, season with a little salt and cook for a couple more minutes. Add the courgettes and the tomatoes and continue to cook on a gentle heat. Add the borlotti beans and mix them in. Now add half a litre of water to the pan, bring to the boil and simmer for fifteen minutes. 

Cook the pasta in slightly salted boiling water for five minutes then drain and add to the minestra along with the corallo and French beans. 

Stir the soup gently so that some of the starch from the pasta slightly thickens it and cook on a gentle heat so that the minestra is barely simmering for about fifteen minutes.  Taste and season if necessary, then turn off the heat to allow the flavours to develop for five minutes before serving.