The Good Plate

Pasta Fagiolo in all its Glory

Recipes In this Post

• Pasta Fagioli

We all remember Dean Martin singing That’s Amore, either on television if you’re old enough, or in the movie Moonstruck, if you’re not. It was raining here today in Glendale, and I had a PTA meeting to go to, so I thought that soup would be an excellent idea.

When the stars make you drool
Joost-a like pasta fazool
That’s amore
When you dance down the street
With a cloud at your feet, you’re in love
When you walk in a dream
But you know you’re not dreamin’, signore
‘Scusami, but you see
Back in old Napoli, that’s amore

I have a wonderful book, The Mafia Cookbook, where I know I can get very authentic Italian recipes. This soup can either be an appetizer, having very little meat, as it is in the book, or you can add meat like I did and have a full filling meal.

Well, lets get started.

Mis En Place

Our Mis En Place,

Cannellini beans

If you cannot find Cannellini beans then by all means, you can substitute Great Northern beans, although the Cannellini beans are superior.

Italian Cut Green Beans

If you cannot find Italian Cut green beans, you could substitute French Haricot Vert, the very thin baby green beans. However, the flat Romano green bean is the best one for the dish. It’s better to get frozen beans than canned beans.

Three Cheese Italian Style Chicken Sausage from Johnsonville

The wonderful Three Cheese Italian Style Sausages from Johnsonville are perfect for this dish. If you want to make an appetizer soup, omit the sausage and use a few strips of bacon instead. You will want the bacon to be crisply cooked before adding any other ingredients, however.

Farfelle

Most traditional recipes call for elbow macaroni, but you can use what you have on hand. I had a little bit of Farfelle left over from SeeFood and Bows, so I used that.

Minced Garlic

Be sure and use fresh garlic, there is no substitute for fresh garlic. Garlic is not difficult to prepare. Simply place the flat part of a chef’s knife over the clove, take your fist, and pound down once. The garlic will slip right out of it skin, and you merely have to chop it from there.

Sautéed Garlic

Using a large pan, sauté the garlic in bacon fat until it has turned tan. Do not let it get brown, because then it would be burned. Take the pan off the heat.

Italian Green Beans

Since the Italian green beans are frozen, I added them and sautéed them a bit so they could take on some of the flavor.

The Cannellini beans were the next thing that went into the pot. They too need a little time to absorb some of the flavors.

The sliced sausage was next. I ate a couple of slices, just to test them out, just to make sure they were good, you know?

Canned tomotoes added to the pot

I used canned chopped tomatoes in my soup. I prefer them because I like nice chunks of tomato. You could use tomato sauce, or crush tomatoes if you want.

Australian Chardonnay

I think that almost any food is better with a little bit of wine included, especially foods that have tomato. I got a wonderful bottle of Chardonnay from my local Armenian store, so I added a little bit of that. I would not suggest using a red wine because it would be too over powering for a light soup such as this.

Drained pasta and its water

Because I used chopped tomatoes which do not have very much liquid, I used two cups of the drained pasta water. This practice is common in Italy, as the pasta water retains a little of the pasta’s flour, which can make the liquid a little thicker.

Pasta Fagioli In the Pot

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