zuppa di fagioli e scarola (bean soup with curly endive, in this case)

sharing a rustic recipe, attempts at recent pasta making calm and sudden summer gardening

You’re about to read the seemingly simple story of a bowl of curly endive and canned beans for dinner. 

If you keep going, you’ll even get to a recipe.

It was the type of meal that tugs at my southern Italian heritage to open up Duolingo, and if I wasn’t already planning on serving it with a crusty sesame batard, I’d be assessing my semolina inventory for fresh pasta.

Buena sera, this is all just an excuse to eat white beans & bitter greens and share photos of some recent pasta making productions in my little cabin kitchen. Trying to keep calm.

white beans & curly endive

Anywhoo, it’s been a week or so since we enjoyed this one-pot meal that’s technically a soup (and can be even more so with extra stock or water & beans), and I have N-E-W-S in necessary-to-me all caps since then: that curly endive is alive once more! 

We’ve been in the process of breaking down our raised bed and all its giving dirt into grow bags and containers before a local move (a story for another day). Since we have all this soil and I hate to waste, I find myself planting…plant butts, as they come and go into our life.

Past re-grow successes in my actual garden include celery and frisée, and most recently the re-birth of bok choy and another celery, so when I started chopping a particular chicory for this titular dinner, the sun was shining, the pots of dirt were a-plenty, and I couldn’t resist. Staying tuned.

the last patch of snow, our little travelin’ garden and make-shift patio on june 2nd

Go figure, every once in a blue moon we get all human and our refrigerator is reduced to odds & ends of root veg and the like that make their way into fried rice, followed by soup, and/or stock. And by blue moon, I mean, midnight sun this time of year. I haven’t seen the moon in weeks! Hence the summer gardening underway.

This time around, that head of curly endive  was just overlooked with all the broccoli, broccolini, campfires and asparagus we’ve been enjoying in recent meals. 

Typically, any chicory or bitter green = Italian pasta dishes to me, because let me echo past realities: by the time a West Coast green makes its way up here (even from the Northwest, and even in the “summer”) those of us who are really, really into seasonal produce – especially those of us who have ever grown our own vegetables – can’t put these limp veg in a salad. 

We just can’t do it. Okay, I can’t do it, and Jules would never. ((And a recent experiment with those “organic living lettuces” from Costco is yet another tale for another day)).

As I was saying, it happens to the best of us…something gets forgotten in the fridge.

This isn’t a stew-it-for-hours deal; this is rustic simplicity, and even better with the freshest chicory and best dried beans you can get your hands on. 

Ah, the irony of my particular use of ignored and imported-to-the-interior-of-49th organic greens in this rendition plus an “emergency” can of great northern beans (eek!), but hey, you already knew you were reading a sub’scrap from a longtime vegan and decades-long farmers market obsessive now living in the interior of Alaska, right? Making it work.

curly endive & beans soup AKA zuppa di fagioli e scarola (or, curly endive, in this case)

adapted from Mangia, Magna

Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil 

• 3-4 cloves garlic, minced

• ¼ tsp calabrian chili flakes or more to taste

• handful flat leaf parsley stems, minced - save the tops for garnish

• 1 bunch escarole or curly endive, roughly chopped into large pieces *or other leafy bitter green

• 1.5 - 2 cups or more of cooked white beans, rinsed if using canned

• 2 cups water or stock, or a mix - start with less and add more, up to 3 or 4 total, depending on how many beans you add

• salt + pepper to taste

• roughly chopped fresh parsley tops, for garnish

• a splash of white wine, stock or water for deglazing

Directions:

1. Add the olive oil and garlic in a large saucepan and cook on medium heat until just golden, quickly deglazing with a splash or white wine, stock or water.

2. Stir in the chili flakes, minced parsley stems, chopped greens and 2 cups of water/stock. Bring to a boil, and then simmer for 10 minutes.

3. Pour in the beans and sprinkle in salt and pepper to taste. Cook for another 5-10 minutes until heated through.

4. Consider adding more water/stock by the ½ or whole cup to your desired consistency, and continue to season to taste.

5. Garnish with fresh parsley and perhaps a drizzle of GOOD olive oil, if ya dig. Serve with crusty bread for soppin’.

Notes:

On chicory, I’m referring to the family of hearty and typically bitter greens that include endives, radicchios, escarole and frisée, which is technically curly endive anyway. Sheesh. This usage of chicory is not to be confused with the wild plant itself, which is evidently in the dandelion family, which makes sense in this bitter greens discussion.

*Nibble a piece, if your green of choice is intensely bitter, you could give a nod to the “old world” traditions and drop the greens into a pot of boiling water for a minute or two, immediately rinsing under cool water or submerged into an ice bath before tossing into the pot as per the recipe.

Other recent Italian episodes…

hand-forming noodles a la pasta acqua e farina (flour-and-wate pasta), from Sauces & Shapes

LOVED this book: Sauces & Shapes by Oretta Zanini De Vita and Maureen B. Fant. Let me offer my not-well-timed apologies for not recalling the specific shape name from this terrific, incredibly thorough book. I did roll them a bit thick and boiled for 20 plus minutes…which happens when you’re a generation removed from the old country.

fresh pasta tossed with blistered cherry tomatoes, calabrian chile & basil (what else is new)

Moving on to a book based on an appropriately viral + touching Instagram and Youtube account: Pasta Grannies by Vicky Bennison. I made the Sardinian macarrones de ungia, aka “fingernail” pasta.

things that keep me going

These are hand-pulled, rolled into ropes and then broken off into small pieces that you roll on a textured pasta board, or in my case, as suggested in the book, a (clean) nutmeg grater.

This was quite the enjoyable, almost therapeutic experience (because, everything & everything & everything, etc).

You can watch a short video on the PG channel of then-95 year old Giuseppa making these in her island hometown of Ozieri. I did – and I rarely do such a thing! The utmost respect.

macarrones de ungia tossed in a simple tomato sauce, topped with flat leaf parsley over wilted purple kale

zuppa di verdure - a simple, lovely vegetable soup w/ farfalline

---

The following is a story from my sister as retold by Jules…

Jen called. Told us about a dinner on her recent business trip to Tuscany: the backstory is that she was dining with her partner at a very meat-heavy restaurant and needing a break, turned her attention to the fresh vegetables served with olive oil and spices. Next came the beans to the table, and encouraged by their Italian friend, she took a serving. Her exact word in this retelling was to describe these beans as  “glorious” . There were plenty left so she took another scoop and the waiter said something in Italian to her. She recognized certain words - evening being one of them. He clarified in English, “If you eat that many beans, you will be singing tonight!” This happened at the exact moment that her partner (many glasses of wine in) was announcing to the table “Jen LOVES beans. Her favorite pasta is pasta e fagioli!” Jen recounted that it was apparently this excess helping that drew the attention of all. She’ll have to bring us next time and I’ll show them how many bowls a bean lover can truly eat!!

Craving beans yet?

[Author’s note - my sister’s story is even richer knowing that even as a young vegetarian, while I can easily picture the ongoing presence of fresh + sautéed greens & just perpetual pasta, I can’t recall any beans on the table unless they were inside something from Taco Bell. That said, I do have clear memories of our late mother’s little bottle of Beano ™, time after time. Was it a gastrointestinal issue? Was it merely a cultural taboo of bean-enjoyment? Is my own adoration for beans rooted in rebellion? I do not know, but my sister and I do love our beans.]

Back to pasta & bread.

handcut tagliatelle w/ bolognese ragu and garlic parsley toast

inspired by Pasta Grannies

I think of this as Detroil-style pizza meets sourdough focaccia

cast iron olive, nooch & garlic adorned focaccia

sourdough twist filled w/ summer berry jam (2021 freezer archives), chocolate chips and crushed graham crackers

All bread recipes adapted from Artisan Sourdough Made Simple by Emilie Raffa

spruce tip status on june 1 // since burstin’ here & there & harvesting has begun

In conclusion, although that word is far from the feelings nor reality, past or present.

may 14th, george parks highway

References + Relevant Links:

• 20 Vegetables You Can Re-Grow From Scraps, Rural Sprout

• Artisan Sourdough Made Simple by Emilie Raffa

• Duolingo {includes my invite link, shrug!}

• Foraging for Chicory, Grow Forage Cook Ferment

• Pasta Grannies: The Official Cookbook by Vicky Bennison

• Sauces & Shapes: Pasta the Italian Way by Oretta Zanini De Vita and Maureen B. Fant

• What are Chicories? the spruce eats

• ZUPPA DI FAGIOLI E SCAROLE, Mangia Magna

  ---

Do you have dishes from your heritage you turn to for ease, but it’s really so much more than that? 

(And if not your heritage, perhaps childhood memories?)

---

---