In Rome, there is no May Day without a picnic with broad beans and pecorino cheese. It’s really a classic.
This recipe brings everything together in a truly superfine first course that is simple but requires patience to shell the broad beans. Certainly, it is a bit ironic that a dish long in its execution is then voraciously brushed in a few minutes!
Pasta with broad beans sauce
- Preparation time: 30 minutes
- Ingredients for 4 servings
- Difficulty: Easy recipe
- Ingredients
- 350 gr or 12 oz of short pasta
- 200 gr or 7 oz of shelled broad beans
- 4 fresh small onions
- 200 gr or 7 oz of bacon
- 50 gr or 2 oz of grated pecorino cheese
- Extra virgin olive oil to taste
- Salt and pepper to taste
- Instructions
- Boil the pasta water in a large saucepan.
- In a small saucepan with boiling water, boil the beans for 3 minutes. Drain and place them in a bowl with ice water. Remove the peel from all the smaller beans and set them aside.
- In a mixer chop the remaining broad beans well with salt, oil, and half the pecorino.
- Cut the onions into round slices and cook them on a low heat in a small pan with some oil, adding the broad bean pesto at the end.
- Fry the diced bacon in a pan until crispy. Remove the bacon and place it on absorbent paper.
- Salt the boiling water with the coarse salt in the saucepan and toss the pasta.
- Drain it and stir it in the pan with the stewed onions and the broad bean pesto, combining the whole small beans. Add a little hot water if the mixture is not creamy enough. Salt if necessary.
- Put the crispy pancetta in the serving dish with the pasta and serve with a sprinkling of grated pecorino.
Tips to ensure the success of the dish:
- The preparation of the small beans is very boring but must be done scrupulously.
- Put the bacon in the cold pan, cook it, and make it crispy, and then drain it and put it on absorbent paper so that it remains crispy.
- To best cook pasta, 1 US quart of water must be considered for every serving.
