Molise, southern Italy
One of Molise's most enduring preparations: sagne — broad, flat hand-cut pasta similar to maltagliati but cut more deliberately into irregular quadrilateral shapes — cooked together with dried borlotti beans in a fragrant tomato base. Borlotti beans soaked overnight are half-cooked in plain water, then the cooking liquid is reserved. A soffritto of onion, celery, carrot and lard is built, ripe fresh tomatoes (or passata in winter) are added and reduced to a dense sauce, then the half-cooked beans and their liquid are added. The sagne are made fresh from semolina and water, cut roughly and dropped directly into the simmering bean-tomato broth for the final 12 minutes. Finished with raw olive oil, torn basil and peperoncino.
Earthy borlotti beans; sweet, dense tomato; wheat-forward flat pasta; lard richness from the soffritto; olive oil freshness at the finish — the quintessential southern Italian comfort preparation.
{"Cook the beans only halfway in plain water before adding to the tomato base — they finish cooking in the broth, absorbing tomato flavour without breaking down too early","Reserve the bean cooking water: it is starchy and flavourful and is the liquid base for the final soup","Cut the sagne by hand with a pastry cutter or knife — the irregular edges catch the bean broth differently than machine-cut pasta","Drop fresh pasta directly into the barely simmering bean broth — not boiling water — so it cooks gently and absorbs the broth flavour","The finished dish should be thick (pasta e fagioli consistency), not soupy"}
{"A Parmigiano rind in the bean cooking liquid adds umami without altering the rustic character","Pass a third of the beans through a mouli or mash with a fork and stir back in for a naturally creamy body","A final drizzle of olive oil in which a dried peperoncino has been briefly heated adds both heat and aromatic complexity"}
{"Skipping the overnight soak, resulting in beans with tough skins that cook unevenly","Fully cooking the beans before adding to the tomato — they break down completely during the final simmer","Discarding the bean cooking liquid — this is where most of the body and flavour resides","Using factory dried pasta instead of fresh sagne — dried pasta requires pre-cooking and produces a different texture"}
La Cucina di Molise: Tradizioni e Ricette della Regione più Piccola d'Italia