Venetian Pasta e fagioli - Borlotti Bean Soup with Pasta
In the Veneto it is made with borlotti beans and so thick the spoon stands up in it. Part of the beans is pureed, the rest left whole - that alone is the difference between a soup and a stew.
- 100 minutes plus Einweichzeit
- 4 servings
- Main course
- vegetarian
- nut-free
- high in fibre
- high in protein
- blood-sugar balancing
- microbiome-friendly
- plant-based
Ingredients
- 200 g Borlotti beans (weighed dry, soaked overnight)
- 160 g Wholemeal pasta (short shapes, weighed raw, cooked in the soup itself)
- 120 g Onion
- 100 g Carrots (finely diced)
- 100 g Celery (celery sticks, finely diced)
- 30 g Tomato paste
- 30 g Parmesan (freshly grated, at the table)
- 30 g Olive oil
- 12 g Garlic
- 3 g Salt (sparingly - the Parmesan brings salt of its own)
- 2 g Rosemary (a small sprig)
- 1200 ml Water
Instructions
- Soak the beans overnight, drain and simmer in fresh unsalted water for 60 to 75 minutes until soft. Keep the cooking water.
- Sweat onion, carrot and celery gently in the olive oil for 15 minutes, adding garlic and rosemary briefly.
- Add the tomato paste and toast it for a minute until it darkens and smells sweeter.
- Puree half the beans with a little cooking water and return them to the pot with the whole beans and the rest of the cooking water. Simmer for 15 minutes.
- Cook the pasta in the soup itself - it releases starch and thickens it further. One to two minutes less than the packet says.
- Only now add the salt, remove the rosemary sprig and serve with freshly grated Parmesan and a little olive oil.
Die Nudel kocht in der Suppe, nicht daneben
Pasta boiled separately leaves its starch in the cooking water, which is then poured away. Cooked in the soup, the starch stays in the pot and thickens the liquid. That is exactly how a homemade pasta e fagioli is recognised in Italy: it is thick, not watery.
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