Pasta with rosemary garlic chick pea sauce

This dish is a perfect pantry meal, one of those what's-in-the-house concoctions. Well, providing your house has fresh rosemary handy, so I guess there's an asterisk there. My potted rosemary plants are managing to survive this punishing winter in the basement under grow lights, waiting, like me, for longer, sunnier, warmer days when it's safe to be outside.

In the meantime, this is a good hearty winter pasta. I suppose if you're cooking for a crowd that insists on meat in every meal, some cooked pancetta would go well tossed in with it. But it's a substantial dish without it.

If you make the recipe with dried beans, it does take a bit of planning ahead. But canned beans would certainly work. I have the equivalent of canned beans in my freezer, where I store beans I've cooked in the slow cooker. Recipes like this are the payoff for the minimal amount of work it takes to have them on hand.

 

Farfelle con passato di ceci

Adapted from “Lorenza’s Pasta” by Lorenza de’Medici, a cookbook that falls under the category of oldie but goodie, outlining 200 essential pasta recipes. She says this dish serves 4, and I'd agree, although you could stretch it to 6 if it's just a pasta course rather than the main dish.

Ingredients

4 ounces dried chick peas (or 2 cans with their liquid)

6 tablespoons olive oil

4 garlic cloves, chopped

3 rosemary sprigs, leaves chopped, plus an optional sprig for garnish

2 tablespoons tomato paste

1 pound farfalle or other short pasta, cooked to al dente and drained with some cooking water reserved

Method

Soak the dried chick peas overnight in enough water to cover. Drain and place in a large pot with enough water to cover. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to a simmer and cook until tender, about 2 hours. Drain beans, reserving liquid. (Or if you’re using canned, skip this step but reserve the liquid in the can.) 

Puree drained beans in a food processor, adding some salt and pepper and up to a cup of bean cooking liquid (or liquid from the can). (If you're using canned beans, go easy on the salt at first and add more later if needed, since canned beans tend to be heavier on salt than the ones you cooked yourself.) Add about ⅔ of a cup of the liquid to begin with and then add more as needed to make a fairly liquid mixture. (The sauce will tighten up a bit as a cooks.)

In a large deep saute pot, heat olive oil over medium heat. Add garlic and rosemary and cook until garlic is slightly tender and oil is fragrant. Add chick pea puree and tomato paste and heat through. Add a touch more bean cooking liquid (or pasta cooking liquid) as needed if the sauce is too thick. Stir in cooked pasta and season to taste with salt and pepper. Garnish with rosemary if desired.

Rating: Nice, and pretty fast to prepare if you're using beans already cooked by you or someone else. Next time I might add a touch of crushed red pepper flakes, or perhaps some Parmesan cheese for garnish. It also might be interesting to try with fresh sage leaves. Certainly a handy bail-out meal using mostly shelf-stable ingredients.