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1
Warm the olive oil in a large, heavy pot over a medium flame. Add the onion, garlic, and crumbled peperoncino and cook gently, stirring occasionally, until the onion is soft and translucent and the garlic is fragrant but not coloured.
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2
Add the crushed canned tomatoes and stir to combine. Raise the heat slightly and cook the tomato base until it darkens in colour, loses its raw sharpness, and the oil begins to separate at the edges — roughly 10 minutes.
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3
Add the potatoes, aubergine, courgettes, celery, and cooked cannellini beans. Pour in the hot water or broth to cover generously. Bring to a steady simmer and cook uncovered, allowing the longer-cooking vegetables — potatoes and aubergine — to become fully tender and beginning to yield at the edges when pressed with a spoon.
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4
This is where the dish lives or dies: add the pasta mista raw to the simmering soup — not to boiling salted water, not pre-cooked — and stir immediately to prevent clumping. Maintain a steady, active simmer for 12 minutes. The pasta cooks by absorption, releasing its starch directly into the broth; the soup thickens perceptibly and the pasta offers slight, varied resistance when bitten — the different shapes will be at different stages of doneness, which is correct and characteristic.
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5
In the final 2 minutes, add the halved cherry tomatoes and stir through. Remove the pot from the heat and fold in the fresh basil leaves. Taste and correct the salt and peperoncino — the Neapolitan version carries a definite background heat. The soup should be thick enough that a spoon drawn across the surface leaves a momentary channel.
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6
Ladle into warmed bowls. Finish each portion with a generous grating of Pecorino Romano and a drizzle of raw Campanian extra-virgin olive oil poured directly over the surface at table.