Ingredients
- 300g pasta (Paccheri, rigatoni, ditalini etc)
- 500g dried borlotti beans
- 1/2 cup passata (or 2 tbsp puree)
- 1/2 cup olive oil
- some sage leaves
- 50g butter
- bay leaves
- chillies
- salt
- pepper
- 1 onion
- 1 carrot
- 1 stick celery
- garlic
- a sprig of rosemary
- 2 cups vegetable stock
- parmesan
- a stick blender
Tools
Prep
Soak borlotti beans for 24hrs
Chop onion, carrot and celery finely to make soffritto.
Instructions
Rinse and sort through the beans, put them in a large pot and cover them with plenty of water. Add two bay leaves and some pepper corns and bring to a boil. Boil for ten minutes, then reduce the heat to a minimum. After two hours, drain them (save the water).
In the (now empty) put, melt the butter with chillies, garlic and sage leaves. After a few minutes, remove the sage, add some olive oil and the soffritto, salt and pepper. Fry this for about ten minutes before adding the tomato puree/passata and, after another five minutes, the beans. Then start adding, a ladle at a time, the cooking water you saved from the beans. At this point you can, if you want, take out a couple of ladles, blend smoothly, and put aside. Then add the rosemary and the stock, boil for another ten minutes and add the pasta. Top up with water if necessary, and boil until the pasta is quite al dente.
Before serving, let it rest for at least three minutes, then top with parmesan, sage leaves and a drizzle of olive oil.
Notes
Instead of adding the sage leaves whole, you may also choose to add them (finely chopped) to the soffritto before adding passata.