Corina’s casarecce pasta with favas, pancetta and pecorino.

1# casarecce pasta

1# double shucked favas very roughly chopped

1/4 c. small dice or slice of pancetta

4 cloves garlic - mashed or sliced

1 young onion - thinly sliced

2 chili d’arbol- sliced (you can use chili flakes as a sub) 

1/4 c chopped parsley

grated pecorino romano (easy substitutes - parmesan or ricotta)

1/2 a lemon

s and p

olive oil

put a pot of water on to boil for the pasta. 

while you are waiting for the water to boil do the following…

warm a generous amount of olive oil in a large pan (it has to be big enough to hold the cooked pasta along with the beans etc.

add the pancetta, garlic, young onion, and chili to the pan. keep the heat on low and let these ingredients sweat and meld together…don’t let them get crispy. when everything is soft add in the roughly chopped fava beans. gently mix everything together to coat the beans with the fragrant, oily love. taste and season with salt as needed…. fava beans like salt! turn the heat way down, or even turn it off.

by this time your pasta water should be boiling, salt it. like the ocean. drop in the pasta and set the timer for 6 minutes. if you are using lorenzos pasta it will cook quite quickly. you want it to be toothy, but not crunchy… you have to taste it. when the pasta is done… use a slotted spoon or small strainer to pull the pasta out of the pot and drop it into the sauté pan with all the tasty treats. add about 1/2 cup to 1 cup pasta water into the sauce pan. turn the heat to medium high and let some of the water cook out… but the sauce should also get creamy from some of the starch from the pasta.

squeeze a bit of lemon into the pasta 

toss in the chopped parsley  

season with s and p as needed. grate the pecorino generously over the whole lot… more than you think… stir with love, perhaps add a few more drops of pasta water to bind the love fest together

plate it

love it

for this pasta dish feel free to puree some of the beans while keeping the rest of them roughly chopped…  it will make for a creamier pasta dish…