I'm Gianni and this is my North Beach.
I'm making pasta e fagioli aka pasta fazool.
This is a favorite of mine and it's also a
favorite of lovelyamor13, who suggested that
I make this on YouTube.
So that's what I'm cooking today.
So let me show you the ingredients for pasta
fazool.
Here's cannellini beans, that I soaked overnight.
Ditalini, the little short cut pasta.
Extra virgin olive oil.
Celery.
Onion.
Garlic.
Fresh Italian parsley.
Bay leaf.
Dried oregano.
Sea salt.
Black pepper.
So let me get the odori going first.
I'm going to use celery and onion.
So there's one.
The second one.
See these leaves over here?
This is gonna add flavor to it.
If I got celery leaves, we're gonna use them.
Okay, there's my celery.
Then we're gonna take half an onion.
Okay, now got a little bit of garlic here.
Baboom.
And baboom.
Give this a rough chop also.
Let me get my pan going.
I'm using this enamel pot.
We're gonna give it some olive oil.
Maybe about 2 tablespoons, I'd say.
Get these in.
So this is the celery, the onions, the garlic,
the bay leaf.
All that goodness is going right in there.
I don't want to get any color on this, so
I'm gonna keep a good eye on it and we just
want them to soften a little bit.
They'll finish cooking in the soup, of course.
But I just want to cook them a little bit
to bring out their flavor.
Any time I'm making a soup or a stew, I'll
always start this way by cooking your herbs
or your garlic, onions.
So we'll just let those go for a minute or
two.
Now that the onions and the celery have sweated
down a little bit, this is my Sicilian oregano.
And I'm gonna add that now.
Just let that toast up.
I've got the cannellini beans that I soaked
overnight.
I'm gonna put a cup or two of these in.
If you don't want to soak beans overnight,
you can use canned cannellini beans.
Just make sure that you drain them well because
you know there's gonna be a lot of starch
at the bottom of the can and you don't want
that in here.
We're gonna add some water to this.
You could use chicken stock, you could use
vegetable stock, but this is gonna be such
a flavorful dish, I don't think you need it.
I don't want the salt, I don't want the other
flavors, so I'm using some good old Hetch
Hetchy water here in San Francisco.
And you want to make sure that you're more
than fully covering the beans.
So I'm gonna bring the heat up to high.
The lid on ajar.
And we'll just test these in about 15 minutes
and see if the beans are tender.
So the beans have been cooking for about 10
minutes in the boiling water.
So I just want to add the final ingredients
here before the pasta goes in.
So I'm just gonna add some parsley here to
help flavor that broth, right?
Because it's just water.
A little bit of salt and pepper.
And then we can always adjust.
This is a tomato puree from Italy.
So I'm gonna add some of this for color.
Let's take a look here and see how we're doing.
I think my beans are gonna be--let me taste
one for you.
I don't want to get burnt here.
Mmm.
The beans are just about to the creamy stage.
It's time to add my ditalini.
You know, usually, my mother used to make
this with ditali, right?
It ended over here.
No "ni".
Because they're a bigger cut than this.
It's hard to find ditali, this cut sometimes.
So ditalini you see more often.
So I'm using that.
It's gonna be just as good.
Some people like to cook their pasta separate
and then add it.
So there's one downside to doing it this way.
The pasta gonna swell up, so you better eat
this soon.
The good thing is that some of that starch
from the ditalini are gonna help thicken the
soup.
So we'll let it go probably about another
5, 6 minutes and we're gonna be eating some
pasta fazool.
Let me taste it.
I got a bean and I got some...I think it's
gonna be done though.
Mmm.
Perfect.
Needs a little salt.
Right?
Always adjust salt and pepper.
I'll give it a little bit of fresh pepper
here, too.
So this isn't a real watery soup.
See, you can see here, see how it thickened
because it had the starch coming off the pasta?
That's the way you want it.
Okay, so here's our pasta fazool.
I'm just gonna brighten it up a little bit
with some parsley.
Nice olive oil.
A little drizzle.
A little pecorino.
Look at the mess I made over here.
Get that all in there.
That cheese is expensive.
I don't want to lose any.
Okay, let me take a little bit here.
See how nice and thick it is, though?
You don't want this to be like a broth.
Look at that.
Some of the beans.
Some of the little ditalini.
Burning my hand.
Mmm.
Just like my mother made in New Jersey.
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When the moon hits your face like a big pizza
pie, that's amore.
When the stars make you drool that's pasta
fazool and I'm having some more-e.
Mmm.
When the moon hits your face?
