Jacques Pépin Makes Pasta Fagioli

(cheerful music) - Hi, I'm Jacques Pépin and this is "American Masters at Home".

(cheerful music continues) - I often make pasta at home, any type of pasta I love.

And rice too, my wife adored rice.

So this is pasta fasul.

It's called fasul, fasul with an F. Pasta e fagioli sometimes, that is pasta and beans.

So pasta and beans, we start with a couple of tablespoons of good olive oil here.

I'm gonna put, and then I have about three quarters of a cup of pancetta, which is unsmoked bacon, really.

Just cured pork like that, that you can get at the market now.

So we're gonna saute that a couple of minutes with onion.

Not that important, whether they're exact.

I would say a good cup.

So maybe I put the whole onion.

(oil sizzling) (knife chopping) And put in there.

(onions sizzling) I have three cloves of garlic here, crush it.

And I would say I have probably a good tablespoon of chopped garlic.

Coarsely chopped is fine.

This should cook for two, three minutes.

And you see, start browning now.

So I put a cup and a half of chicken stock, cup and a quarter of tomato, tomato diced, tomato, puree of tomato and make sure like I have here is perfectly fine.

Rinse it out.

Of course, salt and pepper in there, probably at least half a teaspoon of salt, half a teaspoon of ground pepper.

The beans, better to drain them.

So maybe I'll put some of the juice of the beans here.

And this is a can of cannellini beans.

It's about a pound, not quite.

Okay, so that has to come to a boil first.

Okay, as you can see now, nice boil.

And this is a good cup of, yep, a good cup of penne, which is about four ounces.

Well, here it is, continue boiling.

I think my pasta is cooked now, as you can see, I cover it.

I cook it covered.

The reason is that if you don't cover it very often too much liquid evaporates and it makes it very difficult for the pasta to cook.

So check it out when your pasta cooks is when, about 20 minutes.

Then I get the beans.

All of that has to come to a boil now.

And that's about it.

I like to put a tablespoon or so of butter at the end here to enrich it a little bit.

Couple of tablespoons of chives or parsley.

Now we came back to a boil.

Let me taste a little bit for seasoning here.

And good, maybe a bit of pepper.

And that's it.

You know, a very delicious Italian specialty here.

Parmesan cheese on top of it.

Maybe a little extra green.

And this is pasta fasul, inexpensive and delicious.

Happy cooking.

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Thank you and happy cooking.

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