Recipe below: Ditalini with Shell Peas, Prosciutto Cotto, Cinnamon, and Basil
Ditalini goes into pasta fazool (or pasta e fagiole in proper Italian), and in traditional Italian-American land it goes nowhere else. It’s a soup pasta. Small. Compact. Pasta e fagiole is sort of a soup, or it can be one. My family’s version was a cross between a soup and a pasta. A soupy pasta with ditalini, cannellini beans, lots of celery and onion, bay leaf, sometimes pancetta, sometimes sage, sometimes rosemary or basil, and occasionally just Italian parsley. Always hot chili flakes on the side. It was special any time of year, but especially in the winter, because it was thick and rich. And I loved ditalini, the little tubes, mixed in with the beans and the heavy broth.
It’s funny how certain pasta shapes become associated with specific dishes and then get etched in stone. When I was a kid there was linguine with clam sauce, rigatoni with meat sauce, penne with pink sauce, and ditalini with pasta fazool. That was all correct, and back then I wouldn’t have dared contradict any of it. But now I don’t think that way. I’m out of pasta prison. So here’s ditalini with fresh peas. Not so different from the bean versions, really, but the entire dish is much lighter. This one’s perfect for those lovely few weeks when spring blends into summer.
I don’t love shelling peas, but I do it because I want the peas. Also it’s nice when your fingers stain green and the kitchen smells like a mix of grass and potato (that’s how raw peas smell to me). And then you’ve got a nice pile of shells to make stock with. I like simmering a handful in a light chicken broth. I used chicken broth for this dish, but you can easily make it all-vegetable by adding the pea shells to a soffritto of onion, celery, carrot, a few leek tops, fennel trimmings, whatever you’ve got on hand.
I’ve included a little cinnamon, which I find gives the dish a bit of a Renaissance feel, or at least what I imagine would be that feel. It also deepens the sweetness of the peas. And cinnamon with basil is a beautiful combination. If you’ve ever grown the herb called cinnamon basil, which tastes and smells exactly how you’d imagine, you already know how alluring this pairing can be.
Ditalini with Shell Peas, Prosciutto Cotto, Cinnamon, and Basil
Salt
Extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 small spring onion, diced, including some of the green stem
1 medium shallot, diced
¼ teaspoon freshly ground cinnamon
1 fresh bay leaf
½ pound ditalini
1 ½ cups freshly shelled peas
A splash of white wine
¾ cup chicken broth, possibly a little more, simmered with a handful of pea shells if you like
3 thin slices prosciutto cotto, diced or cut into thin strips
About a dozen basil leaves, roughly chopped or torn
Black pepper
A small chunk of Parmigiano Reggiano cheese
Set up a pot of pasta cooking water. Add a generous amount of salt, and bring it to a boil.
While the water is coming to a boil, get out a large skillet and set it over medium heat. Add a drizzle of olive oil and the butter. When that heats up, add the onion and the shallot, the cinnamon, and the bay leaf, and let all the flavors open up for a few minutes.
Drop the ditalini in the water.
Add the peas to the skillet. Add some salt, and stir everything around to coat the peas with flavor. Add the splash of wine, and let it bubble out. Add the chicken broth, enough to just barely cover the peas. Let simmer, uncovered, until the peas are tender, about 5 minutes.
When the pasta is al dente, drain it, and pour it into a large serving bowl. Drizzle on some fresh olive oil, and give it a toss. Pour on the pea sauce, add the prosciutto cotto and the basil, and grind on a generous amount of fresh black pepper. Toss again, adding a little more chicken broth if needed to coat everything nicely. Serve hot, adding grating Parmigiano at the table.