Pisarei e Fasoi

Name: Pisarei e Fasoi (Pasta and Beans from Piacenza)
Yield: Serves 6 as a first course, 4 as a main course; recipe doubles easily
Cuisine: Italian
Ingredients: 2 cups (1 pound) dried borlotti or cranberry beans or 1 (19-ounce) can Italian borlotti or cranberry beans, undrained; 2 European bay leaves, preferably fresh; use only 1 bay leaf if you are using dried California bay leaves; 8 leaves of fresh basil; 4 tablespoons unsalted butter; 2 teaspoons tomato paste, just enough to add color; 10 cups water; 1 cup meat broth or 1 meat bouillon cube dissolved in 1 cup hot water; if you use the cube, beware its saltiness; 1 small white onion, sliced extremely fine; ⅓ cup (2 ounces) minced pancetta, salt pork, or bacon; ½ scant cup fine dry bread crumbs; About ¾ cup very hot water; 2 cups (10 ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour; Substantial grindings of fresh black pepper; 1 egg; At least 4 quarts water; 2 teaspoons salt

Pasta and Beans from Piacenza

Preparation info

Serves
6
as a first course recipe doubles easily

Difficulty
Medium

Appears in

In Nonna's Kitchen

By Carol Field

Published 1997

About

Piacenza’s best-known dish starts with pisarei, chewy pasta shaped like large grains of wheat. They are a legacy of times of extreme poverty when everything had to be used up, even the last remaining bread crumbs. Usually the pisarei—so called because they bear a certain resemblance to little boys’ penises (in Italian, pisellino)—were eaten with faso, or beans, a combination of cereals and legumes that was a substitute for the proteins they couldn’t get from meat, which

Ingredients

Europe
Italy
Main course
Mediterranean

Ingredients

Method