Garden Fresh Fagioli

I found these beautiful pink and white shell beans at the farmers market. I think they are a cranberry-type bean, maybe the variety called Coco Rubico or possibly Etna, which seem to be related to the Borlotti bean of Italy. We have fresh tomatoes, garlic and sage from the garden right now, so I decided to make Fagioli all’Uccelletto from a recipe I had shoved away.

Fagioli all’Uccelletto means “Beans in the Style of Little Birds,” or “beans cooked the way people cook small game birds.” That’s a lovely name, so after I sent the leftovers to the Witness Protection Program and changed their identity to make them unrecognizable to the family on the second day, I renamed them Fagioli all’Uccelletto in un Campo dei Pomodori, or Beans in the Style of Little Birds in a Tomato Field. Because the second recipe involves a lot more tomatoes, and it’s nice to think of the little birds getting a change of scenery.

The original recipe calls for dried cannellini, which take about two hours to cook after soaking. I thought since these beans were fresh shelled, they would cook much faster, but they did not, perhaps because we are having a really dry summer here. It took ninety minutes of boiling before they were tender.

The beans, of course, went from being a lovely pink and white to being a very low-key tan, as cooked beans always do, but they tasted fresh and earthy, with an almost nutty flavor. Combined with the tomato and sage, and just a hint of garlic from keeping the clove in large pieces in the oil, the beans were very savory and would make a great side dish to grilled or roasted meat, or you could serve them just warm on a bed of salad greens for a light, high-protein, meat-free meal. The recipe is equally good hot or cold.

We had half a batch left over from dinner the first night, so I decided to incorporate the Little Birds into the pasta sauce for the following day. Since beans and tomatoes and herbs are very happy together, I used a can of whole Romas and a few additional sage leaves, and I simmered the lot together for twenty or thirty minutes until everything was nicely steeped. With the short, thick bean shape, I went with penne for the pasta, and dinner was very hearty indeed. If you had other odds and ends of vegetables around—zucchini, carrots, corn, arugala, kale—you could toss those in too.

If you’re in a rush, it would be very easy to make Fagioli all’Uccelletto using canned beans and canned diced tomatoes. It would even make a nice, fast, make-ahead bean salad for the last hot days of summer.

Recipe: Garden Fresh Fagioli