In short. Dried broad beans soaked overnight, cooked down to a cream, and mixed through pasta with good oil and pepper. Three ingredients, and one of the oldest dishes in Puglia.
There is an old Salentine saying attached to this dish — «So sciote a mamma p’abbende’, so occhiete e’ fete da muzzeque»: I went to my mother’s house for a rest, and found the beans waiting to be cleaned.
Ingredients
- 500 g of pasta
- 400 g of dried, shelled broad beans
- extra virgin olive oil, pepper, salt
Method
1. Soaking. Cover the broad beans with water and leave them for 12 hours.
2. Cooking. Drain, then cook over a low heat in plenty of water. When it comes to the boil, skim the foam off the surface, and top up with a little water from time to time so the beans never dry out.
3. The cream. After about an hour, work the beans into a cream.
4. Together. Mix through the cooked pasta, finish with a good amount of extra virgin olive oil and pepper, check the salt and serve.
The oil at the end matters. In a dish with three ingredients, the raw oil poured on at the table is not a flourish — it is one third of the flavour. This is where a good Apulian extra virgin earns its price.
More on the first courses page.
