Recipe Notes: Pasta e Fagioli

21 October 2019

Recipe from Cook's Country, October 2018

My mom would make pasta e fagioli (Italian for pasta and beans) using a packet of dried ingredients from the supermarket. I don't remember ever making this myself so I don't know what else went into it, but it was a good soup. I have made a number of very good soups using America's Test Kitchen recipes in the last few years so I was hoping my memories and this new recipe would come together to provide another good soup.

Two cans of cannellini beans provided the fagioli for the recipe. One can was mixed with water and puréed in a food processor. In a Dutch oven, chopped onions, carrots, celery, and pancetta were cooked in olive oil to soften the vegetables. Tomato paste, minced garlic, and red pepper flakes were added and cooked until fragrant. The second can of beans was stirred into the mixture with the puréed bean mixture, brought to a boil, and simmered for 10 minutes. Pasta was added (I used tubetti rigati  #72, the closest I could find to the ditalini specified in the recipe) and cooked until al dente. Off heat, grated parmesan and chopped fresh basil were stirred into the soup. The soup took about 90 minutes to prepare.

This is a good soup but we both thought it was lacking something. Even though I halved the amount of red pepper flakes called for in the recipe, I thought the background warmth it added go well with  the earthy flavors of the soup, the beans, pasta, and aromatic vegetables. Diane thought is was a little bland and needed something more, but probably not more red pepper flakes. So this a good soup but I don't know if it is good enough to make again given the other soups we have tried that we liked better.

Update, January 2022: Wanting to make this soup but disappointed in the ATK recipe, I tried an older recipe from Food Wishes. The ingredients and video instructions are found, now, on different web pages.  While we did not do a side-by-side tasting, I think we liked the Food Wishes recipe better. This recipe includes Italian sausage which perhaps adds the element that we found missing in the ATK version. I used mild sausage, a modest amount of red pepper flakes (as always), and tubetti pasta because I had it in the cupboard. It was simple to make, taking less than an hour. Chef John of Food Wishes has several more recent versions of "pastafazool" which might be worth trying.