Pasta e ceci — pasta with chickpeas, garlic and rosemary
The Roman minestra thick enough to eat with a fork: chickpeas soaked overnight and simmered with garlic, bay and rosemary, with a third mashed to thicken the broth. Tomato purée is cooked until fragrant, then ditalini simmer in the chickpea broth until creamy, finished with olive oil and peperoncino.
Ingredients for two
| 160 g | Dried chickpeas soaked for 12 hours overnight; yields about 370 g cooked |
| 5 g | Bicarbonate of soda 1 tsp, for the soaking water |
| 160 g | Ditalini (small tubular soup pasta) 80 g per person: chickpeas already provide starch, and in Rome the dish has more chickpeas than pasta; alternatively, use spaghetti broken into 2 cm lengths |
| 1200 g | Water for cooking the chickpeas; excludes the 1 litre soaking water, which is discarded |
| 15 g | Garlic 3 cloves: 2 whole for simmering and 1 finely sliced for the sauté pan |
| 5 g | Fresh rosemary 1 sprig: half for simmering, the remaining leaves stripped and chopped |
| 1 g | Dried bay leaves 2 leaves |
| 50 g | Celery 1 whole stalk with leaves, for the broth |
| 50 g | Extra virgin olive oil 5 tbsp: 2 for cooking and 3 to drizzle over before serving |
| 20 g | Double-concentrated tomato purée 1 tbsp |
| 2 g | Chilli flakes (peperoncino) 1 tsp: half for cooking and the rest to serve, for those who like it |
| 8 g | Fine salt 1 1/2 tsp, added in two stages |
| 1 g | Black peppercorns a few turns of the pepper mill to serve |
Method
- The day before, rinse the chickpeas and soak for 12 hours in 1 litre cold water with the bicarbonate of soda; they will double in volume. On the day, drain and rinse with fresh water.
- Put the chickpeas, 1,200 g cold water, 2 whole peeled garlic cloves, bay leaves, whole celery stalk and half the rosemary sprig in a 3–4 litre saucepan. Bring to the boil, skim off the grey foam, then simmer with the lid ajar for 50–70 minutes, depending on the age of the chickpeas. Add 5 g salt halfway through. They are ready when a chickpea crushes between two fingers without resistance and its skin slips off. Do not discard the broth: it is the heart of the dish.
- Remove the bay leaves, celery and rosemary stem. Transfer a third of the chickpeas (about 120 g) to a bowl with the 2 cooked garlic cloves and a ladleful of broth (about 100 g). Mash roughly with a hand blender or fork. Finely slice the remaining garlic clove, and strip and chop the leaves from the remaining half sprig of rosemary.
- In a wide, 28 cm sauté pan, heat 20 g olive oil over a medium-low heat with the sliced garlic, chopped rosemary and half the chilli flakes (1/2 tsp) for 2 minutes, until the garlic is pale golden and the rosemary sizzles and smells fragrant. Add the tomato purée and cook, stirring, for 1–2 minutes until darker and glossy. Add the chickpea purée and stir for 1 minute to absorb the flavours.
- Add the whole chickpeas and about 500 g of their broth, roughly 5 ladlefuls or three times the weight of the pasta. Reserve any extra broth for loosening; if there is not enough, top up with hot water. Add the remaining salt and bring to the boil. Add the ditalini, reduce the heat to medium and cook for 1–2 minutes longer than the packet instructions, about 11–13 minutes: pasta cooks more slowly in thick broth than in plenty of water. Taste and stir often with a wooden spoon so the starch thickens the broth. If it thickens too much before the pasta is ready, add hot water 100 g at a time. It is ready when the pasta is tender and the broth forms a thick cream coating everything, with a spoon leaving a trail that slowly closes: neither soup nor dry pasta.
- Turn off the heat, cover and rest for 3 minutes to let the dish settle. Check the salt. Serve in deep plates, drizzling 15 g olive oil over each, with a few turns of black pepper and a pinch of the remaining chilli for those who like it.
Lighter version
- Ditalini (small tubular soup pasta) : 120 g
- Extra virgin olive oil : 30 g
In step 4, heat 10 g olive oil (1 tbsp) instead of 20 g.
In step 5, add about 360 g broth, three times the weight of the 120 g pasta, or about 3 1/2 ladlefuls, instead of 500 g. Loosen with hot water if needed.
In step 6, drizzle each plate with 10 g olive oil (1 tbsp) instead of 15 g.
Use 60 g pasta per person and 3 tbsp oil: 1 for cooking and 2 to finish. Keep all the chickpeas, as they provide the protein.
On your plate
Recipe
786 kcal · protein 27 g · carbs 95 g · fat 32 g
Quantities per person
- 80 g Dried chickpeas
- 2.5 g Bicarbonate of soda
- 80 g Ditalini (small tubular soup pasta)
- 600 g Water
- 7.5 g Garlic
- 2.5 g Fresh rosemary
- 0.5 g Dried bay leaves
- 25 g Celery
- 25 g Extra virgin olive oil
- 10 g Double-concentrated tomato purée
- 1 g Chilli flakes (peperoncino)
- 4 g Fine salt
- 0.5 g Black peppercorns
Cooking tips
Starting the overnight soak takes just 1 minute. You can also cook the chickpeas the evening before or in the morning and refrigerate in their broth, leaving less than 30 minutes to do at dinner time. Leftovers thicken considerably in the fridge; reheat gently with 100 g water and a drizzle of oil, and they taste even better. Cook double the chickpeas and use the extra for hummus or a salad the next day. For a redder version, common in Roman homes, add 150 g crushed peeled tomatoes with the broth in step 5. For a Neapolitan version, replace the ditalini with pasta mista, a mixture of packet ends or broken spaghetti and penne, often omitting the tomato purée, and cook in the broth in the same way.
A meatless Friday minestra from Rome and Lazio. The classic Roman version melts an anchovy fillet into the oil with the garlic and rosemary. It is omitted here to keep the dish fish-free: an anchovy dissolved in the base cannot be separated out for the fish-free plate. Anchovies are pareve; this omission is not a kashrut requirement. Browning the tomato purée and blending the cooked garlic into the chickpea purée provide depth instead.
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