How to make Pasta Fagioli - Cara Di Falco - Cara's Cucina

Hey guys , welcome to Carras Cuccia .

I'm Kara de Falco .

And this week I am showing you how to make pasta Fali or as we know it here on the east coast of the state .

Pasta .

Great food isn't just about good ingredients and knowing how to cook , it's about telling the story of the food .

Yeah , is the epitome of Italian poor man's food and it is a very inexpensive dish to make and it is perfect for these cooler fall days .

I have a nice big pot of salted water .

I brought it to a boil and I am going to add in £1 of dili and dini literally translates to little fingers .

So it sounds better in Italian as most things do .

But they're just little pastas that are gonna work out well in any soupy so style dish , we're gonna get those started to start the base for our soup .

As we start almost anything in Italian cooking , we're gonna add about a tablespoon of good Italian olive oil into our pot .

We're gonna let that heat up and then we're gonna add in about one half of a chopped onion onions have been cooking for about 3 to 5 minutes .

So now we're gonna add in two cloves of garlic that I chopped up .

And as soon as this becomes fragrant , just a couple of seconds in the pot , we're gonna start to add in a few spoonfuls of .

I'm just using crushed tomatoes now as in all Italian cooking and , and the way that my grandmother used to do it , if you have leftover tomato sauce that you've cooked already , you can use that as well .

And again , this was another way to kind of use up some leftover things .

So we're just gonna get in a little bit of this crushed tomato and you put in as much or as little as you want , everything about this is to your taste .

So if you like a more tomato based soup , put in a little bit more if you don't put in a little bit less .

So I've got about three or four tablespoons .

We're gonna let this start to cook up a bit .

Our tomatoes have cooked down a little bit .

They've gotten a little darker in color and it has a beautiful smell at this point .

So I'm gonna start adding in our beans .

Now I use uh cannellini beans .

And again , it's just what I grew up with .

I had a girlfriend in high school , her grandmother , I believe used uh red kidney beans .

So again , it's whatever your family likes .

My grandmother also used to use Chechi beans .

If she couldn't get a hold of Canini beans .

And I also have reserved some of the water in that bowl of the beans .

So this is about two , this is 2 15 ounce cans of beans .

We're just gonna start with half for now and our pasta is almost ready .

It's just about al dente .

Our pasta is cooked al so I'm gonna turn it off and drain it .

But I want to reserve the water , the water of the , the cooked pasta is what you're gonna use to finish making the broth for the soup .

So we're gonna let this drain out and we're gonna put it in with our beans and our onions and tomato just trying not to make a mess here .

Let's get that one a little bit out of there .

OK ?

And pound of pasta is a fair amount of pasta .

So we're gonna maybe do this by eye and kind of keep adding things in until it looks right and how I would like it .

So I am gonna add in the rest of this tomato and that was about a half cup that I had in there in total .

And I can actually just use this bowl to spoon in some of that pasta water and start making this soupy .

Now , one of the things that you can also add in is some of the water from the beans themselves too because that'll kinda help again , create a nice flavorful broth .

So add a little bit of that in , I've reduced my heat to low at this point because we really don't need anything else to continue cooking .

The pasta is cooked , the beans are already cooked once they came out of the can and I have enough liquid in here to , uh , more or less cover everything .

And again , this is the consistency that I would want this to be if you'd like it to be more soupy , add a little more water , add a little more of the bean water .

Uh I wound up adding in both cans of beans on the advice of my husband who's eating this for dinner tonight .

So that's what he's gonna be uh having .

So now we're gonna season this with some salt , some black pepper , a little pinch of oregano .

Uh And again , I know some people like oregano , some people don't .

Um So again , if you don't like it , don't add it in as well as a quick pinch of some red pepper flakes .

And we'll just let this continue to heat through over low and we're ready to go serve your soup with a generous Sprinkle of Parmesan cheese .

That is it for this week in the cuccia guys .

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I'll see you guys next time .