- So in regards to this shirt,
I'm gonna show it off for a second,
I didn't buy it from Saks Fifth Avenue.
It's Winona Ryder, whom
I really, really love.
She had a little bit of an
incident in the early aughts
and she stole from Saks Fifth Avenue.
That's all, but it's not [mumbles]
- [Interviewer] She's still
getting [beep] for that, too.
- She's still getting [beep].
It's so not right.
Oh, she's past that.
[upbeat instrumental music]
- Today, we're making a dish,
I guess the proper name
would be pasta e ceci,
which is Italian for pasta with chickpeas.
This is a type of pasta dish that comes
very much from cucina povera,
which in Italian it
translates to peasant cooking
or cooking of the poor,
which is taking ingredients
that are easy to find,
pantry ingredients and
combining them together
and creating something really delicious.
We have a few different elements.
Everything gets cooked in one pot.
The first is we're just
gonna chop some onions.
[knife taps]
This is kind of a medium onion.
I just use half of it.
You don't need
[garlic cracks]
the whole onion.
I'm just gonna take
three cloves of garlic.
[knife taps]
Okay, so I have three cloves of garlic
I'm just thinly slicing.
[garlic clinks]
I'm keeping the onions and
garlic separate but same bowl.
And less dishes.
Okay, I'm gonna take
this to the sauce pan.
[knob clicks]
I'm gonna go medium-hi heat,
add about three tablespoons.
[spoon clangs]
It's not hot enough.
[spoon clangs]
Okay, you have your onions,
we're just sweating them.
We're just trying to soften
them, get them to turn golden.
We don't want them to kind of
get brown around the edges.
Once they get to that point,
we'll stir in the garlic
and let that cook until they're tender
and really fragrant and softened.
Okay, I'm just gonna open a
can of whole peeled tomatoes.
This is my favorite brand.
If you watched the sauce episode
from "Making Perfect Pizza"
Brad and I discovered these
tomatoes and they are the best.
They're not from Italy,
the tomatoes are grown in California.
They're sweet, they
have like a jammy flesh.
I would just eat them
[can opener clacks]
straight out of the
can, they're that good.
I'm gonna just dump
[can opener clacks]
the whole thing into a bowl.
[can clangs]
I've seen some people use scissors
and just go straight into the can.
I just feel like
[can clangs]
it doesn't get the
tomatoes properly crushed.
I just use my bare hands and I just go in
like the claw at the arcade.
- [Interviewer] What a rip-off.
- What a rip-off.
You're probably gonna use
about a little less than half
of this, of the can. You're
not gonna use all of it
'cause you're already gonna
have additional liquid
with the water.
Our onion is golden,
it's softened.
[spoon clangs]
I'm gonna just add the garlic.
[spoon taps]
Give this a stir.
I like the onions,
they import like a little bit of sweetness
that kind of tames the
acidity of the tomatoes.
I wouldn't skip on them and
I definitely wouldn't skip
on the garlic.
[spoon clangs]
Again, these are all ingredients that,
[spoon clangs]
if you watch the YouTube channel,
I feel like you should have.
[spoon clangs]
So for here I'm gonna add these chickpeas.
This is just one canned of
chickpeas drained, rinsed.
What's going on?
[chickpeas thud]
[chickpeas sizzle]
[bowl clangs]
I'm not looking for kind of
to get them crunchy or crispy
'cause that's not gonna happen
'cause we're adding additional liquid,
but just to kind of cook them
out, brown them a little bit.
I'm also gonna add
[spoon clangs]
one spring of rosemary.
I'm just gonna leave it whole,
I just kind of want the flavor.
Some of the leaves might fall
apart and that's totally fine.
If you wanna chop it up, that's fine.
It's gonna be more of
a concentrated flavor.
You'll see a few different variations
of pasta with chickpeas.
[spoon clangs]
You'll see ones where they
just leave the chickpeas whole.
You'll see ones where they
scoop out some of the chickpeas
and they blend it and you'll
have more of like silky broth.
Or you'll have something
like this where I do crush up
the chickpeas a little bit,
to kind of get their starch going,
and that'll help thicken up the sauce
or the broth.
[food sizzles]
You'll immediately smell
the rosemary.
[spoon clangs]
I'm gonna add--
I want it a little spicy.
And it says quarter
teaspoon, you can go up
to a half
[spoon clangs]
if you like it really spicy.
You can go a pinch if you're sensitive.
- [Interviewer] Are you
spicy or sensitive, Andy?
- I am incredibly sensitive
and being the most spicy
at the same time. [laughs]
[spoon taps]
I'm just gonna smash a few
of these chickpeas around.
Just some, again to get that starch going.
I'm gonna just taste one.
[spoon clangs]
You also, you want to
cook the chickpeas out
to get any of that tinny
flavor you have from the can.
I'm gonna season with a bit of salt
then I'm gonna add
[spoon clangs]
about half of the tomatoes.
[tomatoes sizzle]
Now, I'm just gonna kind of
let this simmer for a bit.
It's already thick but I
just kind of want to get
that tinny flavor out
and concentrate it a bit.
This will only take a few minutes
and then we'll add some
water, bring it to a simmer,
add the pasta, let it
cook until it's al dente.
Okay, you could see how the
tomato has definitely thickened
to almost jammy.
[spoon clangs]
I'm gonna add four cups water.
[water splashes]
[spoon clangs] I'm gonna
bring that to a simmer.
[cup clangs]
[spoon clangs]
While I'm waiting for that
to come to a simmer
[bowl clangs]
I'm gonna talk about this pasta shape.
It's calamarata, which is
kind of this tubular shape
that kind of resembles squid rings almost,
I think that's where the name comes from.
But any kind of short-cut
pasta would work.
I wouldn't use a long pasta,
[bowl clangs]
a bucatini or spaghetti here.
I think anything where the chickpeas
can get in there and hide a bit, I like.
I'm gonna season with a bit of salt.
Again, we don't have a separate
pot of pasta water going.
This all happens in one pot.
And you have the chickpeas
[spoon clangs]
and you have the pasta
[spoon clangs]
and they're both going to
release their starches.
So you're gonna get a broth
that's a little more rich
and has slightly thickened
and has a little more body
than you typically would get.
I'm just gonna give it
a little bit of a taste.
[spoon bangs]
[Andy smacks]
It's a little spicy, you get the rosemary.
I think it needs a little bit more salt.
Okay, I'm adding six ounces of pasta.
That is definitely a lot less
than what we typically call for
but you have the chickpeas along with it,
so it definitely will be
enough for four servings.
[pasta clangs]
I'm gonna dump that in.
[bowl clacks]
I'm gonna give it a stir and
I'm just gonna let this cook,
definitely stirring here and there
because the pasta will want to
sink to the bottom and stick,
and you just want to make
sure that doesn't happen.
Whatever the package says for al dente,
it could take another minute or two longer
just because this isn't necessarily
100% just water and salt.
This has other things going on
so it will maybe take the
pasta another minute or two
to cook to al dente.
[knife taps]
Okay, I'm just chopping some parsley.
[pan sizzles]
Scoop that in and then
I'm gonna just grate
some Parmesan in the same bowl,
[cheese whooshes]
maybe like three tablespoons.
I'll top with a little bit
more Parmesan, as well.
[grater clangs]
[hands slap]
Okay, let's go.
Okay, so our pasta has cooked.
[bowl clangs]
I'm gonna just remove the rosemary sprig.
Some of the leaves have
fallen, that's okay.
I'm gonna just stir this in.
[food sizzles]
[bowl clangs]
From here, I can just turn the heat off.
And you could see--
I mean I love it.
This is like
[spoon clacks]
adult, I'm not even going
to say it's SpaghettiOs
'cause I've never had SpaghettiOs
and I don't want SpaghettiOs
but it does have like a very--
I love the look of it.
I love the shape of this pasta.
[spoon clacks]
Okay, let's remove it.
You could grate your Parmesan
but with this
[knife clangs]
I kind of want like,
I don't know, I'm gonna go for
[knife clangs]
like slices, almost.
[knife taps]
[knife clacks]
Kind of like that.
[cheese thuds]
You know, you could leave it like this,
you could crumble some of it up,
[knife clacks]
but I want the cheese
to have some texture.
[pan clangs]
Okay, I'm gonna just taste this for salt.
[Andy smacks]
It's really flavorful.
When I tasted the broth
before I added the pasta,
it was very thin and watery
and, I have to be honest,
like a little sad,
but that 12-minute cooking
time of the sauce reducing,
the tomato kind of coming forward,
the starch from the chickpeas
and the pasta coming in,
you get this really nice
texture from everything
and all the flavors
[spoon scrapes]
have properly melded.
Rapo?
- [Adam Rapoport] What's that?
- [Andy] You wanna try?
- [Adam] Yeah, what do you got?
- I love how I asked Adam
and other people are trying
to get in on this.
- I put a tie on for the video.
- Oh, good.
[pot bangs]
I put on a shirt with no
holes on for the video.
- Do you have any forks?
- I think this is a spoon, pasta e ceci.
- Oh, pasta e ceci.
- [Andy] Pasta e ceci.
- That's gorgeous.
So is this like a soup or a pasta?
- I think this is somewhere,
yeah, this is, I think,
more of a soup.
It falls under the same
category as pasta e fagioli,
same with pasta e lenticchie,
but this is my favorite one, I think.
Very few ingredients.
- Love the rosemary.
- Love the rosemary.
You don't bite into it
but you get the flavor.
- And it still tastes like
creamy but it's not pureed.
- Yeah,
[spoon clangs]
a lot of people they'll
puree like half the chickpeas
but I find that if you just
smash the chickpeas a bit
it'll release the starch
and will thicken the sauce.
[spoon clangs]
And the shape is nice.
- Mm, hot.
That's what I want on a Monday night
when I'm trying to be healthy
and start my week off
[spoon clangs]
meatless Monday but I still want something
that's like satisfying.
- Mm-hmm, yet I think it hits the spot.
[hands clap]
- Thank you.
- Approval [snaps] from
the head man in charge.
- Cool.
[spoon clangs]
I love this pasta shape
[spoon clangs]
so much.
- I know, right.
- Light but hearty at the same time.
- Light but hearty, I'm very
tempted, whenever I make it,
to add like a knob of butter,
which I think would be welcomed,
but instead I just stirred in some cheese
and then I topped with more cheese.
- No, it's really tasty.
I like the little bit of heat.
I'm doing a double dip.
I really like this pasta shape.
What's it called again?
- Faint rosemary.
Calamarata.
- Oh, 'cause it looks like
calamari. [spoon clangs]
[fingers snap]
- The tubular rings.
- You know what it needs?
A few rings of calamari in there, whoa,
you wouldn't know
- I think that
would be delicious.
- what would happen.
- That would be really nice.
[spoon taps]
Approved?
- J'approve.
- J'approve.
That's it, pasta e ceci.
Hopefully one day, I'll be
able to do pasta e lenticchie
but for now, this is my favorite
pasta dish from cucina povera.
[air clicks]
That's a tight bulb.
[garlic snaps]
That's a good thing.
Everybody just looked
at me when I said that.
- [Interviewer] A tight
bulb and you should have
sticky fingers when you handle it.
- Yes, exactly.
