Venetian pasta e fagioli: borlotti beans slow-cooked with pancetta and rosemary, half passed into a cream, egg tagliatelle and raw olive oil. Served warm.
Introduction
In the Veneto it is called pasta e fasioi, and it is not the bean soup you find in the rest of Italy. It is thicker, almost a cream: the borlotti beans cook for a long time with the soffritto, the pancetta and the rosemary, then half are passed through a sieve and half stay whole, and the pasta cooks directly in the cream that results. The spoon, they say in the osterie, should almost stand up in it.
The second rule is temperature. Venetian pasta e fagioli is not eaten piping hot: you let it rest in the bowl for a few minutes, until it is warm and just beginning to set, and only then finish it with a drizzle of raw extra virgin olive oil and a grinding of black pepper. It is a humble dish, made with whatever was in the larder in winter, and for exactly that reason it lives on the quality of a few ingredients: a good bean, a good oil, and time.
In the glass we pour the Recantina DOC AliCea from La Caneva dei Biasio, a medium-bodied red from the Montello and the Colli Asolani, with an acidity that cleans away the bean cream and a redcurrant fruit that lightens its earthiness. To finish the dish we use the Olio Extravergine Veneto del Grappa DOP from Oro de Pòe, poured raw over the warm soup.
History of Venetian Pasta e Fagioli
The bean we now associate with pasta e fasioi comes from the Americas, and it reached the Veneto in the sixteenth century. Belluno tradition says that the first seeds were given by Pope Clement VII to the humanist Pierio Valeriano, a canon of Belluno, who had them sown on his family's land. In the Valbelluna and on the Lamon plateau the bean found an ideal climate, and that is where the region's most famous borlotto was born, the Fagiolo di Lamon della Vallata Bellunese, a PGI since 1996: thin skin, floury flesh, a sweet flavour reminiscent of chestnut.
For centuries pasta e fagioli was the everyday dish of farmhouses and of the bacari of Venice, where it was served in bowls as the midday soup. Every area has its own version: around Belluno they use Lamon beans and a short pasta, around Treviso and in Venice egg tagliatelle broken by hand or maltagliati, and some put a piece of pork rind or a ham bone in the pot instead of the pancetta. Three principles stay fixed: the beans partly passed to make the cream, the pasta cooked in the soup and not separately, and the rest before serving.
Ingredients
For the soup
- dried borlotti beans (ideally from Lamon)300 g
- flat pancetta, diced80 g
- onion1
- carrot1
- celery stalk1
- medium potato1
- extra virgin olive oil for the soffritto2 tablespoons
- rosemary and bay1 sprig and 1 leaf
- water2 litres
- saltto taste
For the pasta and to serve
- egg tagliatelle or maltagliati200 g
- Extra Virgin Olive Oil Veneto del Grappa DOP 500ml4 tablespoons
- freshly ground black pepperto taste
Equipment Needed
- Large heavy-based pot, ideally earthenware
- Food mill with a fine disc or stick blender
- Bowl for soaking
- Wooden spoon
Tip: For the cream a food mill is better than a blender: it holds back the bean skins and gives a velvety texture that is not gluey. If you use a stick blender, blend only the beans taken out of the pot with a little of their broth, and in short pulses: blended too long they turn into a thick grey paste.
How to Make Venetian Pasta e Fagioli — Original Recipe
Soaking and soffritto
The evening before, put the beans in a bowl with plenty of cold water and leave them to soak for at least 12 hours. The next day drain and rinse them. Finely chop the onion, carrot and celery. In the pot heat the oil with the diced pancetta over a medium heat until the fat turns translucent, then add the chopped vegetables and let them soften for 8-10 minutes, without letting them colour.
Chef's tip: If you find fresh beans in autumn, skip the soaking and cut the cooking time to about an hour.
The cooking
Add the drained beans, the potato peeled and cut into pieces, the rosemary and the bay to the soffritto. Cover with 2 litres of cold water, bring to the boil, then turn the heat down to the minimum and cook with the lid ajar for about 2 hours, until the beans are very soft and crush between your fingers. Salt only towards the end: salt added at the start toughens the skins.
Chef's tip: The boil should be barely a tremor: over a high heat the beans split on the outside and stay hard inside.
The cream
Remove the rosemary and the bay. With a slotted spoon take out about half the beans and the potato, pass them through the food mill and return the cream to the pot, stirring it well into the broth and the beans left whole. The soup should be thick but still fluid: if it is too dense thin it with a ladle of hot water, if it is too runny let it reduce over a low heat for a few minutes.
Chef's tip: You cannot taste the potato in the finished dish, but it binds the cream and makes it more velvety.
The pasta
Bring the soup back to a gentle boil and cook the hand-broken tagliatelle directly in the pot for the time shown on the packet, stirring often so they do not stick to the bottom. Turn off the heat, adjust the salt and leave to rest for 10 minutes. Serve warm in deep bowls, with a drizzle of raw extra virgin olive oil and a grinding of black pepper.
Chef's tip: As it rests the soup thickens further: that is normal, and it is how it is eaten in the Veneto. The next day, reheated with a splash of water, it is even better.
Wine to Pair with Venetian Pasta e Fagioli
Venetian pasta e fagioli looks like an easy dish to pair, and it is not. It is a thick soup, almost a cream: half the borlotti beans passed through a sieve, the other half left whole, the pasta cooked directly in the broth, and in it the fat of the pancetta and the scent of rosemary. In the mouth it brings three things together: the starch of the beans and the pasta, which coats the palate and makes it pasty; an earthy sweetness, typical of the borlotto; and a fatty savouriness that comes from the soffritto. Above all the wine has one job: to clean. It needs a lively acidity that lifts the bean cream off the palate and makes each spoonful feel light. Tannin, on the other hand, must be measured: the proteins of the pulses can take some, but a red that is too rough turns dry and bitter on the starch. And it needs fresh red fruit, not cooked, as a counterpoint to the earthiness of the bean. That is why the dish calls for a medium-bodied Veneto red, served slightly cool, and not a big red for roasts.
The Red We Recommend
Recantina DOC AliCea — La Caneva dei Biasio — The **Recantina DOC AliCea from La Caneva dei Biasio** comes from the hills of the Montello and the Colli Asolani, and it is the wine of an ancient native grape of the Marca Trevigiana that very nearly disappeared. At the table it has exactly the profile that pasta e fagioli asks for: a medium-bodied red, dry and soft, with a tannin that is present but measured. Acidity is its main tool: it cuts through the cream of the passed borlotti and the fat of the pancetta, and resets the palate between one spoonful and the next. The tannin, which is not aggressive, finds enough support in the proteins of the beans to stay soft, without drying the mouth on the starch of the pasta. The aroma does the rest: red forest fruit, above all redcurrant, and notes of violet, which bring freshness alongside the earthy sweetness of the pulse and match the rosemary in the soffritto. The wine ages only in bottle, for three to six months, so there is no oak to cover such a simple dish. The limit must be stated: at 13,5% vol it is not a light red, and piping-hot soup flattens its fruit. It works best with pasta e fagioli served warm, as Venetian tradition wants. Serve it at 16 °C, at the lower end of the range given on the data sheet.
The Territorial Alternative
Raboso del Piave D.O.C. — Italo Cescon — If the Recantina is the choice of balance, the **Raboso del Piave D.O.C. from Italo Cescon** is the choice of character: the most austere red of the Veneto, with an acidity and a tannin that the data sheet calls pronounced. On pasta e fagioli it works with more force. The high acidity cuts the fat of the pancetta and lightens the borlotti cream better than any other red, and that is why in the osterie of the Treviso plain dishes of pulses and pork have always been drunk with Raboso. The aroma of morello cherry and berries gives the dish a fruity counterpoint, and the spicy note matches the black pepper and the rosemary. Thirty months in oak barrels give the wine warm notes of spice and vanilla, and a firmer body than the Recantina. That is precisely the limit: the tannin is robust, and on a pasta e fagioli made without pancetta, or very runny, it would stay rough. It is the wine for the richer version, with pork rind or plenty of pancetta. Open it a few hours ahead, as the winery advises, and serve it at 17-18 °C.
Want to explore the grape variety? our guide to Raboso
Craft Beer as an Alternative
Reckless Bock Beer — doppio malto — With a pulse soup beer has an advantage over wine: the bubbles. The carbonation carries away the starch of the beans and the pasta that lingers on the palate, the job that acidity does in wine. The **Reckless Bock from Norah's Farm** is a bottom-fermented strong beer in the Dunkel Bock style, deep copper, brewed in the Pedemontana Veneta. The malt is in the foreground, with notes of caramel and dried fruit, and the hops remain barely hinted at. This toasted sweetness matches that of the borlotto, a sweet bean with a flavour reminiscent of chestnut, and the browning of the pancetta in the soffritto. The creamy head adds softness next to a dish that already has plenty of it, and here lies the limit: 7% vol and a sweet finish make the whole thing full, so a small glass is best, with a not-too-generous serving of soup. Serve it at 8-10 °C, in a tulip glass.
Want to explore the style? dark and doppelbock beers
Variations
- With pork rind: the oldest version puts a piece of pork rind of about 150 g in the pot instead of the pancetta, blanched, scraped and cut into thin strips. It cooks with the beans for the full two hours and gives the soup a stickier texture and a deeper flavour.
- With Lamon beans: with the Fagiolo di Lamon PGI the soup is sweeter and creamier, because the skin is thin and the flesh floury. 250 g is enough, and the cooking time drops to about an hour and a half.
- Without meat: leave out the pancetta and make the soffritto with oil alone, adding a clove of garlic and a tablespoon of tomato purée. It is the version for meatless days, lighter and closer to the flavour of the bean.
- With short pasta: instead of tagliatelle you can use ditalini or pasta mista, the kind made from the leftovers of packets of dried pasta. It is the choice of many households around Belluno and Vicenza.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between Venetian pasta e fagioli and the others?
Venetian pasta e fagioli is thicker and creamier: some of the borlotti beans are passed through a sieve and returned to the pot, and the pasta cooks directly in the soup, absorbing its starch. The seasoning is simple, with soffritto, pancetta or pork rind and rosemary, almost always without tomato. And it is served warm, with a drizzle of raw oil and black pepper.
Which beans should you use for Venetian pasta e fagioli?
Borlotti, dried or fresh. The finest are those from Lamon, in the province of Belluno, which have a thin skin and a floury, sweet flesh, and give a more velvety cream. Ordinary borlotti work too, as long as they are not too old: a dried bean more than a year old stays hard even after hours of cooking.
Can you make pasta e fagioli with tinned beans?
You can, but the result is different: the flavour of the soup comes precisely from the long cooking of the beans with the soffritto and the rosemary. If you use ready-cooked beans, you need about 750 g drained, to cook in the soffritto with a litre of water or stock for at least 30 minutes before passing half of them.
Why is pasta e fagioli eaten warm?
Because that is the temperature at which the flavour of the beans and the oil comes through best, and the soup reaches its texture: as it rests the starch of the pasta and the beans thickens it. In the Veneto the habit is so deep-rooted that in summer some people even eat it cold, the next day.
What wine goes with pasta e fagioli?
A medium-bodied Veneto red with a lively acidity and a measured tannin: the acidity cleans away the bean cream and the fat of the pancetta, while a tannin too rough on the starch would make the wine bitter. The Recantina from the Montello and the Colli Asolani is the choice of balance; for a richer version, with pork rind, a Raboso del Piave holds up better.
