Pasta e fagioli (pasta and bean soup)

Pasta e fagioli is made all over Italy, each region in its own way: some use cannellini beans and some borlotti, some add pancetta or pork rind and some tomato. This is a simple version with borlotti and no meat, where the flavour comes from the soffritto, the rosemary and the oil. The trick to make it creamy is to blend some of the beans and cook the pasta right in the soup.

Ingredients for 4

• 250 g dried borlotti beans (or about 700 g cooked borlotti)
• 200 g short pasta, such as ditalini or tubetti
• 1 onion, 1 carrot, 1 celery stalk
• 1 garlic clove
• 1 sprig of rosemary
• 2 tablespoons tomato passata (optional)
• 4 tablespoons IL CONTE Blend, plus a drizzle of IL CONTE Raggia single variety to finish
• Salt and black pepper

Method

1. If using dried beans, soak them in cold water overnight, then drain.
2. Chop the onion, carrot, celery and garlic and soften them gently in the Blend, in a large pot, for about ten minutes.
3. Add the beans, the rosemary and the passata, if using, and cover with about one and a half litres of water. Simmer with the lid on until the beans are tender, an hour and a half to two hours; salt only towards the end. With cooked beans, 20 minutes is enough.
4. Remove the rosemary. Blend about a third of the beans with a little of the broth and return them to the pot.
5. Bring to the boil, add the pasta and cook it in the soup, stirring often and adding hot water if it gets too thick. Leave to rest for five minutes.
6. Serve with a drizzle of Raggia and some ground pepper.

The right oil

The Blend is perfect for the soffritto. The final drizzle of raw Raggia single variety, on the other hand, makes the difference: on the hot soup it releases all its grassy aroma.

Photo: valtercirillo, Wikimedia Commons, public domain (CC0).