Pasta e Ceci

A luxurious take on cucina povera

Seeing as we’re now in the interregnum between two cooking-intensive holidays, it can be hard to get the culinary juices flowing. The markets are less than bountiful this time of year, and warm, Christmas-ified restaurants beckon. In these lean times for home cooks, I rely on simple meals — often one-pot and heavy on pantry staples — enlivened with some more luxurious touches.

As a lover of pasta and chickpeas, the cucina povera dish of pasta e ceci is a favorite of mine. You can certainly keep this as simple as possible, cooking some small pasta like ditalini in chickpeas and broth, akin to pasta e fagioli. Occasionally, however, I like to imbue it with a bit more style: crispy chunks of guanciale mixed into half-puréed chickpeas, onions cooked with sage and white wine in the rendered pork fat, and some fried sage leaves to top it off. The porcine notes work really well with beans, and the sage gives it a warming winter aroma. For this kind of pasta e ceci, I prefer to use medium-size shells to catch the chickpeas and guanciale — but, as always, any pasta will work.

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Pasta e Ceci with Guanciale and Sage

Ingredients

• 1/2 pound pasta (shells, rigatoni, etc)

• 1 can of chickpeas with liquid

• 1 bunch sage

• 1 small onion, finely minced

• 3/4 cup of diced guanciale

• 1/2 cup dry white wine

• Parmigiano Reggiano, grated

• Black pepper

• Extra virgin olive oil

Instructions

1. In a small pan, heat olive oil until very hot. Fry a few leaves of sage for 2-3 minutes until they crisp up; remove before they start browning. Place on a plate lined with a paper towel and set aside.

2. In a large pasta pan, add the guanciale and some olive oil on low heat and cook until the fat is rendered and the guanciale are a bit crispy and a brick red color. Remove the guanciale and set aside, leaving the fat in the pan.

3. Add the onions and a few sage leaves and cook. Add the white wine to the pan and cook off the alcohol.

4. Add the chickpeas and their liquid. Bring to a boil.

5. Bring a pot of water to boil for the pasta. Salt and add the pasta; cook for ~2 minutes below the package instruction.

6. Turn down the heat on the chickpeas. With an immersion blender (or a wooden spoon), lightly blend just half of the chickpeas. It should be a saucy mixture with some whole chickpeas left in. Salt and pepper to taste.

7. When the pasta is ready, add the pasta to the pan. Add a few ladles of pasta water and cook the pasta on high heat in the sauce until it’s done.

8. Flip/toss the pasta in the sauce to coat and emulsify. Turn off the heat and add cheese (add more pasta water if too thick). Add the guanciale and mix.

9. Plate; add some olive oil, cheese, and the fried sage.