Pasta e Fagioli alla Veneta
Euganean Hills, Veneto
Veneto's pasta and bean soup — thick, starchy, and dense. Borlotti beans grown in the Euganean hills are the correct variety; dried beans soaked overnight and cooked from scratch to capture the starchy cooking liquid. The dish's consistency is 'all'onda' — a thick porridge of dissolved bean starch with pasta cooked directly in the bean liquid. Finished with a drizzle of Veneto olive oil and black pepper. The Venetian tradition includes a bay leaf smoked over a rosemary sprig as an aromatic for the bean cooking — a technique unique to the Euganean hills.