Recipe below, in text: Cavatelli with Fava Beans, Guanciale, Cacio di Roma, and Mint
It’s an Italian cook’s Zen time of year again, the time when fava beans need peeling. It’s got to happen or else the earth cycle isn’t complete. I didn’t grow up with fava beans; I started peeling them when I cooked at Le Madri, in the early 1990s. Alan Tardi, the chef there at the time, would dump a crate of them at my station, and the anxiety would begin. How fast could I shuck, then blanch, and then peel the skin off every single bean by squeezing with my thumbnail until the skin slipped off to reveal the clear green mini bean beneath. With all my effort, maybe I’d produce enough bald fave to put together ten or eleven appetizers of fava and pecorino before the dish was eighty-sixed for the night. But I sort of loved doing it. The swing of repetition and the pursue of rustic elegance got me hooked on fava beans. From then on I had to blanch and peel fave every spring, maybe not in restaurant quantity, and certainly not in that frantic fashion, but enough to make one or two dishes for my family.
I like creating new cooking rituals to add to my old ones, making my sometimes boring kitchen responsibilities richer. Many Italian Americans confine their kitchen rhythms to expressing nostalgia for their childhoods—like with the flouring, egging, and breadcrumbing routine of cutlet preparation. I really hated helping my mother with that. My hands got so disgustingly gummed up. I like to adopt newish boring tasks. It keeps me on my toes. Fava bean peeling really fits the bill, and I look forward to it every spring.
Here’s a recipe for cavatelli with fava beans, guanciale, cacio di Roma, and mint. To make it for two or three you’ll need 1½ pounds of fava beans in their shells. That sounds like a lot, but once you’re finished with them, you’ll see how little of it is actually bean.
Shell the beans. Then put up a pot of water, and bring it to a boil. Add the beans, and blanch them for about 3 minutes. Pour them into a colander, and run cold water over them to stop their cooking. Let them drain. Now comes the tedious part. Pinch the side of each bean, to break its skin. Squeeze the skin so the bright green bean pops right out. Beautiful color. Do this with all the beans. Have fun.
Take a chunk of guanciale (or pancetta, if you prefer), and cut it into small dice. You’ll want about ¾ cup. Get out a large sauté pan, and set it over medium flame. Drizzle in a little olive oil, and add the guanciale or pancetta. Let it get crispy.
Throw ½ to ¾ pound of cavatelli into a pot of salted boiling water.
Add a chopped spring onion to the guanciale, and let it soften. If you have fresh spring garlic, add a little of that too—but don’t bother if you’ve got only the papery supermarket stuff. Add the fava beans to the pan, and season them with salt. Let them sauté for about a minute, and then add a big splash of dry vermouth, letting it bubble for another minute or so. By this time the fava beans should be tender but still holding their shape.
When the cavatelli is al dente, drain it, leaving some water clinging to it, and add it to the pan, tossing it well but quickly, just to coat everything.
Add a big drizzle of fresh extra-virgin olive oil, a generous amount of coarse black pepper, and a few drops of lemon juice. Pour the pasta into a wide serving bowl. Add a handful of fresh mint leaves (see my note below), lightly chopped if they’re large, and grate on some cacio di Roma (or another not too strong sheep’s milk cheese). Give everything a quick toss, and serve it out onto two (if you eat a lot) or three plates. Bring the chunk of cacio di Roma to the table for grating.
About Casa Italiana
Last week I attended a lecture on Giordano Bruno at Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò, which is part of New York University. Bruno is one of my favorite pantheists. If you’ve ever been to the Campo de Fiore in Rome, you’ve likely noticed the huge, dark, hook-nosed statue that hovers over the piazza. That’s Bruno. He was condemned to death by the Roman Inquisition and burned at the stake in Campo de Fiore in 1600 for not believing in hell and other accepted notions. He was a philosopher, a poet, and a scientist. You don’t find a show about Bruno every day, so this was an event.
Over the years I’ve attended many lectures at Casa Italiana, programs on the theater of Eduardo De Filippo, on fashion in Italian film, on Verdi’s childhood, on Elsa Morante’s novel Lies and Sorcery, on the history of trans culture in Southern Italy, and, most recently, a show about music created by Italian military prisoners during World War II. This Italian cultural institution, on West 12th Street in Manhattan, has been run by Professor Stefano Albertini since 1998. I’m astonished by how much stuff Stefano and his crew put together, often three or four programs a week. Most of the programs are free, and you don’t have to be a member to sign up, although if you donate more than $100 you’re considered a member and get first crack at seating and other perks. They also sometimes put out wine and antipasti. It’s a great place to know about if you’re interested in Italian culture. I love it.
A note on mint:
I used spearmint for the dish above. Peppermint, to my palate, is too strong for just about any savory dish. Spearmint when fresh has a beautiful clean aroma and taste. But something happens to it when you heat it. Some chemical is let loose. To me cooked spearmint tastes like caraway seeds. I don’t get the caraway taste when I chew a raw leaf, but I do get it when it’s heated and mixed with onion or garlic. This is not a bad thing, but a little caraway goes a long way in a dish from central Italy.
I always thought spearmint must have some molecule in common with caraway, so I finally looked it up and discovered that yes, it does. Carvone is a member of a group of chemicals called terpenoids. It’s abundant in the oils of both spearmint and caraway seeds, and also of dill. So there’s my answer. I never knew that, but I sure tasted it.
To preserve spearmint’s clean taste with only a touch of caraway, I add it to a hot dish like this pasta at the last minute, and I don’t chop it much. The balance is good.