Pasta con i fagioli (page 2 of 2)

Keywords:	Pasta ¦ Italian Cuisine ¦ Homemade Pasta ¦ One pot meal ¦ Affordable gourmet ¦ Traditional ¦ Vegetarian ¦ Freshly Milled Flour ¦ Memorable Meals ¦ Slow Food ¦ Beans
Translations:	Español
Feedback:	44 comments - leave yours!

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Homemade wholewheat spaghetti with a delicious beans ragu for a typical Tuscan peasant dish.

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Bigolis are also made in Tuscany under various local names and using regular wholewheat flour. Here I mixed half wholewheat flour with the same quantity of durum semolina, which gives more bite. Then one egg per guest, a tablespoon of oil and knead until the dough is as hard as cement. Bigolis stick unless you have a super dry dough.

Practical joke time. Guys, I just realized we ran out of pasta, I am so sorry but really don't know what you'll be eating tonight, I tell them. My friends look confused and a bit anguished, it's quite late. Then I go But maybe you could do me a favor ... and I show them the bigolaro. Each guest in turn sits on the little bench as I feed the bigolaro with the brown dough. They start turning and the bigolaro starts whining and hissing, soon joined by the bigolarist suffering from muscular exhaustion while everybody laughs.

I instruct another guest to take a little flour in his hand and gently rub the spaghettis as they come out so they won't stick to each other.

Finally, we ran out of dough and my friend cuts the 28 bigolis with one decisive move (she's a surgeon!).

I shake the bigolis to remove any excess flour, then drop them in a huge pot of salted boiling water.

They cook for about 90 seconds, then I remove them to a large dish and cover them with the beans ragù. What a divine smell!

A little parsley, a bowl of grated Parmesan and we tuck in.

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If you do this recipe at home please let me know how it worked for you by submitting a comment or send me a picture if you can. Thanks!

44 Comments

#1
Comment by Cat

Thank you for this veggie version. I love the blog but often have trouble adapting the recipes for my preferred diet.

I was dead chuffed to read the Hot Chocolate too, same reason!

#2
Comment by Ben

hi FX, what beans are used here?

#3
Comment by peteformation

Yummy, Yummy. Thks for sharing the recipe.

#4
Comment by picsel

Hey, for how long do you cook the beans? :)

#5
Answered by fx

Picsel, some beans will need only 30 minutes, while others are still tough after 3 hours. Cook the beans until soft, that's all I can say!

#6
Answered by fx

Ben, these were fagioli ruviotti, or phaseolus vulgaris.

#7
Answered by fx

Cat, I'm glad finally you found some articles here that you can transform into a proper dish!

#8
Comment by picsel

Thanks, FX! That is why I was asking, everytime I boil beans they get soft after a different amount of time. i thought maybe i was doing something wrong :) Ijust put mine in water, i'll give your recipe a try tomorrow ;)

#9
Answered by fx

Picsel, you need to use soft water as it makes for much tenderer beans. You can definitely add a piece of bacon or pancetta or ham to this ragù!

#10
Comment by picsel

Oh, too bad my girlfriend is a vegetarian :) I'll sure try the bacon next time. I know my mom did that when I was a kid... smoked bacon or even sausages ;) I will have some spicy pickled cucumbers aside, for sure!soft water it is... Thanks

#11
Comment by Jay

If only your vegetarian friends knew how that Parmigiano-Reggiano was made... May as well have included the animal fats!

#12
Comment by Susan at Sticky,Gooey,Creamy,Chewy

This is an excellent recipe and it looks wonderful! My grandmother made pasta con i fagioli weekly when I was growing up. To this day, it always makes me think of her. It is my ultimate comfort food!

#13
Comment by Ouroboros

Hey there FX,

Looks great. Can I safely assume that the specific bean that you used would be called "navy beans" here in the US? I can't believe that I find myself researching beans after reading this recipe. Is "beanology" a word? If not, it should be...the different varieties and properties are remarkable.

Also, I would be delighted to see more homemade pasta (of all forms) articles. That's something that I've always wanted to try, but the process seems intimidating.

Keep up the great work!

O

#14
Comment by Frederik (Bergen, Norway)

I discovered your site yesterday, and got stuck for hours! It is really fantastic with all the vivid photographs and simple step-by-step desription of even quite complicated recipes. It is also quite intimidating, because as amateur chefs we all make a lot of compromises in cooking, mostly in order to save time, cost or because of we lack some unusual ingredient or piece of equipment. You seem to love exactly those things that most people omit for practical reasons. Somehow you still manage to explain to us why the result is worth the effort. You are doing a great job!

#15
Answered by fx

Frederik, thanks a lot for your kind words, in fact I was speaking with a Norwegian friend about Bergen last week end. There was a great episod on Arte, the TV channel, about country cooking in Norway, so I'm glad to have a reader from there. I think homecooking can be done with different approaches. Many people, especially housewives, have to feed the household and they do not always cook when they like it, so they cut corners, which is normal and understandable. But people who cook at home only when and if they feel like it, with no great family pressure to put food on the table, have more leisure to look for fine recipes, special ingredients or really get into the finer details of cooking really oustanding meals. Clearly I fall in the latter category, and if you do too I can only recommend you try and cook with the most detailed recipes you can find and do everything with care - it is very rewarding!

#16
Answered by fx

Ouroboros, I think you can cook this with many different beans so use the ones you can best obtain. I have cooked this 3 times already this year, once with fresh beans, once with canned and once with dried ones. For the homemade pasta, just click on the "Homemade pasta" tag at the top of the article and you'll find a long list of articles I already published about it. Good luck!

#17
Answered by fx

Susan, how did your grandmother's recipe differ from this one? Was it more like a soup or more like a pasta sauce? where did she come from?

#18
Answered by fx

Jay, next time I see her I'll check to see if she's got a leather handbagg ... no, just joking, people live like they want and as a host my only and sacred duty is to make them happy for a few hours.

#19
Comment by Dave Dragon

Nice Recipe, I love Pasta & Beans as we call it.
Dave

#20
Comment by Saxit

When I do pasta with beans I use either borlotti or cannellini beans. I skip the tomatoes and instead put half the beans in a blender when they are cooked. Then I just put everything back in the pot and stir so it basically becomes a thick sauce.
I'm gonna try your spice mix though - but I won't skip the pork :)

#21
Comment by Nick Kindelsperger

One of my favorite dishes, but I've never had it quite like this...thanks for the inspiration.

#22
Answered by fx

Nick, good luck, this one really is for the "Paupered Chef" as the beans triple in volume overnight!

#23
Answered by fx

Saxit, sounds like a great idea to mash a few of the beans to thicken the sauce!

#24
Comment by David

I made a similar recipe not so long but using pancetta as the fat, which take away from the vegetarianism. Have you tried using frozen beans? I can get frozen borlottis and like the texture better than dried. Of course they are much more expensive. I'll have to try this still.

#25
Comment by Dave Dragon

The wife & I made this dish last evening and it was fabulous with some focaccia bread.

Dave

#26
Comment by Johanna

What a carb fiesta! I love your home made spagetti!

#27
Answered by fx

Johanna, thanks for your visit, indeed lots of carbs and almost no fat!

#28
Answered by fx

Dave, glad my beans pasta worked for you!

#29
Answered by fx

David, pancetta is a great match and although I have never tried frozen beans, it should work just as well. Dried beans are nice to play with but not always the best solution.

#30
Comment by Helena

Ok so I'm gullible. I actually believed this for a paragraph or two ...

"The next day, the beans have turned beige but the water has become yellow with what the Ancients called the yellow bile, the acquae fartorum. Many a cook of centuries past has lost his life after forgetting to discard this evil liquid, some in a kitchen fire as their bloated stomach released a cloud that exploded as soon as it met an open flame; others in their sleep, as the putrid vapours crept out of their exhausted bodies and poisoned all in the house. Yet others were spared thanks to an open window, only to be marked as stinking pariah and cast out of society in those houses they called domus peditum."

After reading about the we are out of pasta joke, I'm not so sure...

Fartorum indeed. Smeltus Deltus Est. Or in this case, Speaketh Deltus Est, to mix linguistic timelines and mash up the grammar. Good one, FX. :P

#31
Answered by fx

Helena, thanks for your appreciation of my fake historical background, even the great Umberto Eco cites fakes books and made up latin citations, it is quite fun indeed!

#32
Comment by isa

hi...i'm so sorry but...pasta e fagioli it's a soup not a pasta whit a fagioli ragù. :-D

#33
Answered by fx

Isa, indeed pasta e fagioli in Italy is most commonly a bean soup with some pasta added at the end, but as you must know in Italy you find similar recipes all over the country with different names and ingredients, and some use beans ragù to use with pasta.

#34
Comment by isa

Hi FX,
I'm italian from Vicenza, Veneto the country of true and original pasta e fagioli...
but I think your recipe it's so tasty!
see you, Isa

#35
Comment by Joe Marfice

FX, I'm confused by the parmesan rind. The photos make it look like you threw it in whole, and then cooked it down - but I suspect this was just for the photo opp. Grate first, oui ou non?

FX's answer→ Non, grate you not! You do leave the rind whole in the pot, cook, then discard. Nobody wants to eat boiled parmesan rind, even grated. However you could also use a whole piece, left whole, and boil it, then fish it out and cut in little pieces. Nobody in Italy does the latter but it works fine too.

#37
Comment by marilu

where can i buy a bigolaro in spain? thanks!!

#38
Comment by Angelo

This pasta looks crazy heavy/filling like that chestnut gnocchi you made a few articles back.

FX's answer→ Yes but it isn't, this is gorgeous and very Italian. You need to try it!

#40
Comment by don siranni

Francois,....."acquae fartorum" ????..?? There is truly much to be learned here!

#41
Comment by Michele Bardi

Parmesan for vegetarians? It's made with rennet from calves' stomachs. Oops,,,

#42
Comment by Rupert

I like your pictures very much, but I can die for Italian Soups with legumes. Beside the Pasta e fagioli, I really like cooking Mes-ciua, a soup of beans, chickpeas and spelt. But the upper one is always a classic!

#43
Comment by Patrick

Very good recipe. I add home made veal Demi-glacé to this dish. Makes a peasant dish incredibly rich.

FX's answer→ That is an excellent idea, homemade stock are a treasure and a sign of an accomplished foodie.

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