HOME-MADE PASTA and CHICKPEAS - Pasta e Ceci

 

  This is a traditional old-fashion dish. 

While many uses canned chickpeas with small pasta shells, I prefer home-made pasta and home cooked chickpeas.

Recipe for home cooked chickpeas.  

Ingredients

1 lb. bag of dry chickpeas

Water

DON'T ADD SALT TO THE WATER

Procedure

In a large pot place the washed chickpeas, add water (3 times the amount of the chickpeas),  bring to a boil and then cover and simmer gently.  About 1 1/2 to 2 hours.

Homemade Pasta

Pasta Dough

  1 1/2 cups of unbleached flour
  1 tsp salt

  1 tsp olive oil

Prepare the dough by placing the flour on a cutting board and make a well.
Add 1 tsp olive oil and salt into the well. Keep stirring this way until you have formed a sticky dough ball. Dump the dough ball onto a floured surface and knead, incorporating more flour into the dough as needed, until the dough is smooth, elastic, even in color and no longer sticky.
To knead the dough, push down on the ball with the heel of your hand, then give the dough a quarter turn, fold it over onto itself and push away from you again with the heel of your hand. Keep turning and pushing until you achieve the desired consistency.  Once you have finished kneading, cover with a dish and let rest at room temperature for 60 minutes or more.  Once the dough has rested, divide into balls. At this point, you may flatten each ball using a rolling pin or a pasta machine.

Rolling pin

Pasta machine

Then roll each dough sheet with a rolling pin and with a knife cut 

into rectangles.

SAUCE (SUGO)
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
1 onion, thinly sliced
2 lb. ripe tomatoes finally chopped or canned tomatoes
Few fresh basil leaves
Salt and freshly ground pepper

Heat the oil in saucepan over moderate heat, add the onion and brown for 10 minutes. Add the tomatoes, salt and basil and simmer over low heat for half hour.  Add the cooked chickpeas and simmer for few minutes.

In the meantime, cook the pasta in boiling salted water and drain.  Mix the pasta with the chickpeas.

Fresh Pasta with Chickpeas and Arugula - Pasta Fresca con Ceci e Rucola

Keeping with the chickpeas theme, here is an ideal recipe to eat light without sacrificing the palate.  In fact, the home-made pasta with chickpeas and arugula constitutes a complete dish that can substitute meat or eggs, without making cholesterol, with a long satiating effect.

Sagne with Chickpeas and Arugula

Ingredients

1 lb. home-made pasta (alternate 1/2 lb. DeCecco - Sagnette Abruzzesi)
2 cups cooked chickpeas (2 - 15 oz. cans chickpeas, with liquid)
1/2 cup celery, diced
1 carrot. diced
1 yellow onion, chopped
1 clove of garlic, flattened with knife blade

1 small bunch of arugula, trimmed

2 leaves of radicchio, shredded

1/2 cup olive oil

Salt and pepper

In a pot add the celery, carrot and chickpeas.  Cover with water and cook for 1 1/2 hrs.

Skip this step, if using canned chickpeas.

Cooked chickpeas (ceci)

Cook the pasta and add to chickpeas.  Add salt and pepper. 

Put the olive oil and the onion and garlic in a heavy pan over medium heat.  Saute' the onion and garlic until onion and garlic become soft.  Add the arugula and radicchio and cook until wilted, 5 minutes.  Add cooked vegetables to the chickpea soup and mix well.  Add freshly grated Parmigiano and serve.

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Ceci all Pignata

Escarole and Beans

Baked Beans and Swiss Chard