24 October 2009
 
Pasta F’Zool

(Pasta E Pagioli)
 
It was a day filled with small triumphs and minor inconsequential tragedies. It was a near thing, watching the skies yesterday afternoon, to get the Harley over to the gas station for the annual safety inspection.
 
Earlier, I found that Ben the Moroccan barber had decided to come to work; a haircut had been on the menu for more than a week and I happened to be passing by the building where his chair is located, immediately under what once had been Frances Freed’s office when she was the Queen of Buckingham.
 
If the guys from the day-labor market across the street knew that I had classified documents in my lockable pouch, I wondered what they might have thought. I couldn’t take the chance of leaving them in the truck of the Bluesmobile. I had to ferry them from one secure location to another, and the barber shop was in between.
 
The pouch was concealed in my leather mail-sack, and nestled near my feet while Ben worked on my white hair.
 
The man who looked back at me in the mirror had a fierce moustache that badly needed trimming and rheumy blue eyes. I wondered who the hell he was, and where he was going.
 
Rhonda had asked me that at the desk that very morning, commenting on the absence of my bow-tie.
 
“I’m a Rebel,” I said tersely. “It is Friday. What the hell. No customers to talk to today.”
 
She handed a tray of keys to Ramos, the lead porter. “First floor convector and fire alarm inspection is today,” Rhonda said brightly. “That completes all the units.”
 
Ramos smiled enigmatically as he took the keys. “You guys have been in all the units in the building,” I said marveling at all the lives open to their inspection.
 
“Si,” he said, and shook his head.
 
“That sounds kinda scary,” I said. “More than two hundred units. Did you see anything….interesting?”
 
Ramos is a man of few words, at least to the Anglos, and Rhonda leaned forward. “The Mayor had to look at one unit himself. The inspection was the perfect opportunity. There is efficiency unit on the seventh floor where five people are living. He wanted to see how many beds were in the place.”
 
I have lived in an efficiency unit in Big Pink in my time, both in the original configuration and in the modification that splits the one room into two tiny ones with a wall erected in the middle.
 
“Can’t imagine it,” I said.
 
“What did he find?”
 
Rhonda is too professional to have told me which unit, but she leaned forward and said “Two single beds and a full size.”
 
I did the math and whistled.
 
“That is three in the full size,” I said in wonder. “That means the whole place is just a dormitory, bathroom and kitchen.”
 
“There are laws about that in Arlington, but in a Condo you can get away with murder. The owner is in California. He rented to two.”
 
I had to be moving along, so I collected my hug and never did find out what the gender composition of the dormitory might be. At least it is better than the guy living in his car at the curb on the west end of the property, across from the Assembly of God.
 
I thought if you had five people in an efficiency apartment, you probably didn’t do a lot of dining out, and concentrated on meatless dinners.
 
That is one of the hallmarks of Pasta e Fagioli, which is a recipe I have been attempting to master. My pal Matt does a nice version, which I will include for your information, since a solid pasta-with-beans classic soup should be part of every Intelligence Officer’s repertoire.
 
With the flood of Italian immigrants at the beginning of the last century, the dish came to North America and began its metamorphosis. It was ubiquitous before the Crash in ’29; A Roaring Twenties song capitalized on the slurred pronunciation in the rhyme, "Don't be a fool, eat pasta fazool."
 
It may be the origin of the later phrase from the war in the Pacific, “Keep cool, fool, it’s Rabual,” but that had nothing to do with dinner, just where a lot of young men thought they were going to go to die.
 
All those kids were products of the Depression, and a lot of them were skinny. After ’29, a lot of people were eating "pasta and beans," and the traditional meatless Italian peasant dish fit the times to a “T,” just as it does now.
 
There are a lot of ways to approach it. You can use cannellini or borlotti beans out of a can, and some type of small pasta such as elbow macaroni. The base is generally olive oil, garlic, minced onion, and spices, along with stewed tomatoes or tomato paste, or more simply, the leftover marinara sauce from Sunday dinner.
 
The consistency of the dish can vary, as some renditions fall clearly in the soup category, usually because the tomato was left out, while others are much thicker. I like the version with bacon, but that is for good times, not lean.
 
It depends on what you have available. I don’t know what they might do up on the 7th floor, but I prefer this hearty bean and pasta soup with fresh creamery butter and lots of crusty Italian bread and a side salad.
 
Matt’s Pasta Fazool
 
4 strips thick-cut bacon (Eastern Market preferred; can substitute ¼ pound prosciutto)
1 medium Spanish onion, chopped
2 staks celery
2 carrots, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 slice fresh ginger (finely diced or pressed)
½ teaspoon crushed red pepper
1 28-z can “chunk style” tomatoes (try the real thing if you have time)
3 cups “free range” chicken stock (I’m kidding- regular oppressed chickens are fine)
1 teaspoon dried rosemary (one tablesppon fresh)
2 16-20-oz canellini beans (or whatever- dried Great Northern well soaked work)
2 cups medium-sized dry penne, rigatoni or farfelle pasta
 
If you want to avoid the whole bacon thing, you may do so. Use olive oil and skip the meat, or substitute the finely sliced prosciutto. But this works, so here goes:
 
Cook bacon in large pot over medium-low heat until all fat is rendered* Remove bacon from pan and reserve.
 
Place the sliced onion, celery, carrots, garlc and giner in the pot and cook in the bacon fat until the veggies are tender (about twenty minutes, enough for a cocktail, but for goodness sakes, stay focused).
 
Add he crushed red pepper flakes, tomatoes and chicken stock. Feel free to range, if you like. If using the dried rosemary, add it now to hydrate. Raise heat to medium high to bring to slow rolling boil. Reduce heat and cook for one hour. This is where focus is vital- I fail when I wander out to drink on the balcony and watch the guy who lives on his car work on it, banging parts together. Avoid that.
 
Add beans, the reserved bacon and cook until heated through- maybe a glass of wine and some chherful banter with one of the other four residents in the place. While the beans are heating, take the time to cook the pasta until al dente (this is a dicy matter- why have Americans decided that pasta has to not be fully cooked to be ready?) and drain. Add the pasta just before serving, and garnish generous with Eastern Market real grated Parmesan cheese. Ladle the soup into bowls and drizzle with extra-virgin olive oil just before serving.
 
This is a fabulous dish for an economic recovery. The key, as you well know about all cooking, is to keep cool while you get hot.

Copyright 2009 Vic Socotra
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*Gentle Readers:  An alert correspondent in Arlington was curious about my comment on slow-cooked bacon, and did his own research- my approach has been a protest against the way my sainted Mother cooked bacon, which was to throw the strips into the frying pan and good the bejesus out of them and serve in confused tangles when mostly black. I line the strips up precisely in the pan, and cook on medium low until the fat is rendered out and the strips are golden. There is another, more elegant approach, this one contained in "Cooking for Engineers,"http://www.cookingforengineers.com/article/110/Bacon-Part-II <http://www.cookingforengineers.com/article/110/Bacon-Part-II>

Method 3: Baking at low temperatures
... (Lay) out strips of bacon onto a wire rack and positioned a wire rack on a foil lined half sheet pan. I placed the pan in an oven preheated to 200°F (93°C) and waited. The theory was that the low heat would penetrate the bacon slowly and as the bacon cooked the fat would render, but without increasing the bacon temperature to a level where the preserving agents of cured meat begin to react and form new compounds producing an off taste (and potentially carcinogenic substances - but more chemicals such as ascorbic acid or erythorbic acid are added these days to help mitigate these effects).
 
Unfortunately, I do not know how long the bacon was in the oven because I forgot to look at the time and fell asleep. My best estimate is that the bacon baked for about 3 hours.
 
The baking resulted in extremely straight pieces of bacon that I found to have exceptional taste and flavor as compared to the pan frying and grilling (the micro-waved bacon's off taste was really apparent next to the baked bacon). The texture was crispy throughout. Since flavor and texture were great, this is my favorite cooking method.
 
The long cooking time means this method is best for cooking bacon in large quantities (multiple pans) and then bagging and refrigerating them for future use. The bacon grease collected from the half sheet pan was pure white and completely devoid of charred bits.
 
Additional recipe tips, like you need them:

   1. If using real fresh tomatoes, use the back of a mixing spoon to break up the tomatoes, after they have been added to the soup.
   2. Alternatively, roughly chop the tomatoes before adding them to the soup, for a finer texture.
   3. For a vegetarian version of Pasta e Fagioli, leave out the bacon, prosciutto and substitute vegetable broth for the chicken broth.
   4. Ditalini is the traditional pasta shape used to make pasta e fagioli. Any type of dried pasta, such as spirals, shells or elbow macaroni, can be used if desired.
   5. If you pass on the bacon, any type of processed meat; such as salami, pepperoni, ham, or even bacon, can be used.
   6. Other varieties of beans, such as cannellini, garbanzo, or Great Northern or black beans can be used in place of the white beans.
    7. For leftovers or another meal, keep the noodles separate to avoid having them dissolve into a starchy mess in the pan. If you need more Pasta Fazool, just double the ingredients.
 
 
 

Copyright 2009 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com