This looks like a lot of ingredients but if you break it up by step like I did below, it’s much less overwhelming. I’ve seen many variations on this recipe including ingredients like ground meat, carrots, red and white kidney beans, red peppers, V-8 juice (yuk!) and ham. Honestly, I consider any of these alterations an abomination, but that's just me. In addition, I delete the tomatoes that are listed in the ingredients below.

Grandma's recipe is as close to the hills of Palermo as one can get. Simple, without a lot of crazy stuff. It has been tweaked a bit to incorporate my grandmother’s suggestions of a little of this and a dash of that. I usually add a bit more pasta and beans than the recipe requests, and it becomes less of a soup (the traditional way) and more like a cassoulet, though an Italian cook would never allude to doing anything remotely French. Oh no. If you go with the cassoulet style, add some shaved mozzarella cheese on top!


Ingredients:

1 pound (450 grams) medium-sized thick-skinned dried beans (makes 6 cups)
-use Great Northern beans for this recipe
1 cup pasta, dried (small shells or Orzos suggested)

¼ cup olive oil
½ cup yellow onion, diced
1 tsp black pepper
½ tsp crushed red pepper flakes

2 large cloves garlic, minced
a few long sprigs fresh rosemary, chopped
1 tsp anchovies, finely chopped to a purée (please don’t buy that nasty stuff in the tube! it has a half life longer than plutonium)

4 cups (1 liter) chicken broth
2 cups (½ liter) reserved pasta water
2 medium tomatoes, seeded, diced (optional)*
salt & pepper to taste

1 cup Parmesan cheese, finely grated
1 small bunch fresh parsley, finely chopped

Directions

1. Sort beans to remove pebbles or dirt. Rinse well. Soak in a large pot with cold water to cover by a few inches. Cover and chill 4–12 hours. I do this the night before.

2. Drain and rinse soaked beans. Place beans in pot, add 6 cups cold water and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer 1–1½ hours, partially covered. Add more water during cooking if needed. Test a few beans for tenderness after 1 hour. Drain and chill (up to 3 days).

3. Cook pasta according to package directions. Drain pasta reserving 2 cups water for the soup; set aside.

4. Sauté onion, black pepper and pepper flakes in olive oil in a large pot over medium-high heat unitl onions are soft but don't let them burn.

5. Stir in garlic, rosemary and anchovy mash. Cook for one minute.

6. Add beans, broth, tomatoes (if you decided to use them) and reserved pasta water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer 20–25 minutes.

7. Stir in pasta, garnish with Parmesan and parsley or season to taste.

This dish can be an appetizer/starter or served with a green salad and your favorite crusty bread as an entire meal. Mangia bene!


Tip: Dry beans vs. canned beans

While using white canned bean is a quick and easy shortcut, this is one dish that I do the old fashioned way. It’s still fun, it just takes a bit longer. Canned beans just don’t have the flavor, texture and nutritional content as dried beans. The whole taste of this soup is remarkably different when using dry beans so I recommend taking the time to plan ahead and do it Grandma's way. You can cook the beans anywhere from 1 to 3 days before making this dish. It’s only a few more steps that makes a world of difference. However, if an emergency arises and you simply need to have this soup ready to eat in less than 24 hours, then use canned cannellini beans.