Italian Piacenza Pasta with Beans | Pisarei e Fasò

Sep 17

11 min read

Pisarei e Fasò (Traditional Italian Piacenza Pasta with Beans)

Pisarei e fasò is the dish Piacenza puts first, ahead of its salumi and its Gutturnio, and it is made from almost nothing. Flour, stale bread, hot water and salt become the pasta. Dried borlotti beans, pancetta, a soffritto and tomato become the sauce. There is no egg, no stock and no cream anywhere in it.

What makes a pisarello a pisarello rather than a gnocco is the breadcrumb. Dry crumb from old bread is scalded with boiling water before the flour goes near it, and the swollen crumb changes the dough completely: it stays firm where a potato dumpling would go soft, and it takes on a rough, porous surface that the sauce grips instead of sliding off.

The second defining element is the thumb. Each small piece cut from a rope of dough is pressed and dragged across the board so that it curls over into a hollow shell. That hollow is not decoration. It is a reservoir that fills with sauce and beans, and it is why a bowl of pisarei eats richer than the quantity of sauce suggests.

Yield: 4 generous servings. Prep: 45 minutes including shaping. Soaking: 12 hours. Cook: 1 hour 30 minutes. Total: about 2 hours 30 minutes plus soaking. Difficulty: intermediate. Course: primo piatto. Region: Emilia Romagna, province of Piacenza.

The Story

Piacenza sits at the top corner of Emilia Romagna, where the Po valley meets the first hills of the Apennines, and pisarei e fasò is the dish the city claims without hesitation. Its origin is peasant rather than aristocratic. The valleys behind the city, the Val Trebbia, the Val Nure and the Val d'Arda, ran on flour, legumes and pork, and the rule of the kitchen was that bread never went into the bin. Bread that had gone hard was grated and used again, in soups, in meatballs and, here, in the pasta dough itself. The dish took its final shape after borlotti beans arrived from the Americas and settled into the Piacenza fields, but the technique of extending flour with stale crumb is far older than the bean.

The name comes from dialect. Fasò is simply fagioli, beans. Pisarei is usually read as a diminutive connected to pisello, a pea, a description of how small the dumplings are, although in Piacenza people will also tell you it describes the pressing motion itself. Either way these are very small pieces of dough, made by hand, in quantity, by someone who has done it many times before.

That repetition produced the best known story attached to the dish. In the Piacenza countryside a young woman being considered as a bride was watched while she made pisarei, and the family looked at her right thumb. A broad, calloused thumb meant a girl who had spent hours at the board and would work; a soft thumb meant she had not. The tale is repeated in every trattoria in the province and it survives because it points at something true. The gesture is the recipe: a machine can mix this dough, but nothing except a thumb dragged against wood makes the curled shell that holds the beans.

Ingredients

Serves 4.

For the pisarei

Fine dry breadcrumbs from stale white bread, 1 1/3 cups (120 g)
Boiling water, 1 cup (240 ml)
All purpose flour, 2 1/2 cups (300 g), plus more for the board
Fine sea salt, 1 tsp (6 g)

For the beans

Dried borlotti beans, 1 cup (200 g), soaked overnight
Bay leaf, 1
Garlic clove, unpeeled, 1
Sage leaves, 2
Fine sea salt, added at the end only

For the sauce

Pancetta, cut in small dice, 3 oz (85 g)
Lardo or pork lard, 1 tbsp (15 g)
Extra virgin olive oil, 2 tbsp (30 ml)
Yellow onion, finely chopped, 1 small, about 3 1/2 oz (100 g)
Carrot, finely chopped, 1 small
Celery, finely chopped, 1 stalk
Tomato passata, 1 1/2 cups (360 ml)
Bean cooking liquid, about 1 cup (240 ml)
Fine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

For finishing

Grana Padano, freshly grated, 2 oz (60 g)
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Preparation

Soaking and cooking the borlotti beans

Soak the beans in cold water for 12 hours, then drain. Put them in a pot with fresh cold water to cover by two inches, the bay leaf, the unpeeled garlic and the sage, bring slowly to a bare simmer and cook 60 to 90 minutes until tender but whole. Salt only in the last five minutes: salted early, the skins toughen and never soften. Keep the beans in their liquid, the starchy stock the sauce needs later.

Scalding the breadcrumbs

Put the breadcrumbs in a wide bowl and pour the boiling water over them all at once. Stir with a fork and leave 10 minutes. The crumb swells, the starch gelatinises and what was dust becomes a warm paste. This step is the difference between pisarei and gnocchi, and it cannot be done with cold water. The mixture should be damp and cohesive, not soupy, so hold back a little water if the crumb is very fine.

Making and resting the dough

Add the salt, then work in the flour a handful at a time while the crumb is still warm, mixing first with a fork and then by hand. Turn it onto a board and knead 8 to 10 minutes until smooth, firm and slightly elastic. It should be stiffer than pasta dough and should not stick. Wrap it and rest it 30 minutes, which lets the crumb finish absorbing and makes rolling much easier.

Rolling and shaping the pisarei with the thumb

Cut off a piece of dough the size of an egg and roll it under your palms into a rope the thickness of a pencil. Cut the rope into pieces roughly a third of an inch long. Press each piece with the tip of your thumb against the floured board and drag it towards you in one short movement, so it curls over into a shell with a hollow underneath. Spread the finished pisarei on a floured tray in a single layer and do not pile them.

Building the pancetta and soffritto base

Melt the lard with the olive oil in a wide heavy pan over medium low heat, add the pancetta and render it slowly for 6 to 8 minutes until the fat runs and the dice are lightly coloured but not crisp. Add the onion, carrot and celery with a pinch of salt and cook gently 12 to 15 minutes, stirring often, until the soffritto collapses and sweetens. Rushed over high heat it leaves a sauce that tastes raw under the tomato.

Simmering the tomato with the beans

Pour in the passata, raise the heat briefly, then drop to a slow simmer and cook uncovered 25 to 30 minutes, until the sauce darkens and the oil separates at the edges. Add the drained beans and about 1 cup (240 ml) of their cooking liquid, then simmer 10 minutes more. Crush a small ladle of beans against the side of the pan: the released starch is the only thickener this dish is allowed.

Cooking the pisarei and finishing in the pan

Bring 4 quarts (3.8 liters) of water to a rolling boil and salt it with 1 1/2 tablespoons (25 g). Drop the pisarei in, stir once, and cook 4 to 6 minutes from the moment they return to the boil. They rise, but rising is not the signal: taste one, and the centre should be tender with no floury core. Lift them out with a spider into the sauce, add a splash of pasta water, toss a minute over low heat, then fold in the Grana Padano off the flame.

Plating

This is a country dish and it should be served in deep warm bowls, not spread across a flat plate. The sauce is loose enough to pool, and a shallow plate lets it run to the edge and cool while the pisarei sit dry in the centre.

Spoon rather than tong. Take the pisarei and the beans together so every bowl gets the same ratio, and finish with a little sauce from the bottom of the pan, where the crushed bean starch collects. The dish should look thick and brick red with the paler shells of the pasta showing through.

Grate more Grana Padano at the table and grind black pepper over each bowl. Nothing else belongs on top: no oil drizzle, no herbs, no chilli. Serve it immediately, because pisarei tighten as they cool and the sauce sets.

Professional Technique

The controlling technique is the scald. Dry breadcrumb is mostly gelatinised starch that has been baked and then dehydrated, and boiling water rehydrates it and makes it available again as a binder. Cold water simply wets the crumb and leaves it gritty. Working the flour in while the mixture is still warm matters as much, because a warm dough develops gluten faster and needs less water, which keeps the finished pisarei firm rather than pasty.

The second is the shaping pressure, which is more precise than it looks. The thumb has to press hard enough to thin one edge while dragging, so the dough folds over itself and traps air underneath. Too light and you get a flat disc that holds nothing. Too heavy and the shell tears or welds shut. The board must be floured but not dusty: a wet board makes the dough stick, a heavily floured one lets the piece slide instead of curling.

The third is using the bean liquid as the sauce base. Borlotti release a great deal of soluble starch into their cooking water, and that liquid does for this sauce what pasta water does for a carbonara. Plain water or stock leaves the tomato thin and separate from the beans. Crushing a portion of the beans at the end raises the starch further and pulls the pan together without flour, butter or cream.

Texture and Moisture Control

The pisarei must stay firm at the centre while the outside softens enough to take sauce, and that depends on the dough being stiff at the start. A wet dough is easier to shape and produces dumplings that swell and turn gluey, so resist adding liquid while kneading. If the dough cracks, wet your hands rather than adding water directly.

Cooking water needs to be generous and at a real boil. Pisarei shed flour, and in a small pot the water goes cloudy and the dumplings stick together. Four quarts is the minimum here. Lift them out with a spider rather than draining into a colander, both because they are fragile and because a little of that starchy water should travel into the sauce.

The sauce should be thick but still mobile when the pasta goes in, since the pisarei keep absorbing afterwards. Judge it by dragging a spoon across the pan: the trail should close slowly. If it closes instantly the sauce needs a few more minutes uncovered; if it does not close at all, loosen it with warm bean liquid, never plain water.

Professional Mise en Place

The shaping is the long part of this recipe and cannot be rushed at service, so it is done in advance while the beans and the sauce cook unattended.

Equipment and tools

Wooden board, which grips the dough better than stone or steel
Bench scraper and a sharp knife for cutting the ropes
Wide heavy pan for the soffritto and the final toss
Pot of at least 6 quarts (5.7 liters) for boiling the pisarei
Spider or slotted spoon, and floured trays lined with cloth

Prepared ahead

Beans soaked overnight, cooked the same day, kept in their liquid
Sauce built through the tomato stage, up to 2 days ahead, refrigerated
Pisarei shaped on floured trays, up to 4 hours ahead, uncovered and cool
Grana Padano grated at the last moment and kept covered

Service setup

Sauce warm and slightly looser than the target consistency
Bean liquid reserved and warm for adjusting the sauce
Boiling water salted and at a rolling boil before the pisarei go in
Bowls warmed, cheese and pepper mill within reach

Chef Tips

Make your own breadcrumbs from real bread. Commercial crumb is too fine and often contains sugar and malt, which sweetens the dough. Dry crusty white bread in a low oven for an hour, break it up and grate it, and you get an irregular crumb that behaves far better under boiling water.

Shape a test batch of ten and cook them before committing to the whole tray. Five minutes of boiling tells you everything: if they dissolve at the edges the dough needs more flour, if they stay chalky they need another minute. Adjusting after the whole dough is shaped is much harder.

Cook the beans yourself if you can. Canned borlotti work in an emergency, but you lose the cooking liquid this sauce is built on, and the brine is a poor substitute. If you must use canned, rinse them and replace the liquid with a light vegetable broth thickened by crushing more of the beans.

Keep the pancetta fat and do not drain it. Piacenza is pork country and the rendered fat is a seasoning here. If your pancetta is lean, add the tablespoon of lard; if it is very fatty, leave the lard out.

Common Mistakes

Using cold water on the breadcrumbs. The starch never rehydrates properly, the crumb stays gritty and the dough will not hold together without extra flour. The water has to be boiling and it has to go on all at once, then rest for a full 10 minutes.

Making the dough too soft. A soft dough shapes beautifully and then swells in the pot and turns to paste. It should be stiff and slightly resistant under the hands. Wet your hands rather than adding water if it cracks.

Skipping the thumb and cutting squares instead. Flat pieces of dough have no hollow, so the sauce and the beans sit around them rather than inside, and the dish loses most of its character. The drag against the board is the recipe, not a flourish.

Salting the beans at the start. Salt added to the soaking or the early cooking water firms the skins and they stay tough no matter how long they simmer. Add it in the last five minutes, once the beans are already tender.

Throwing away the bean liquid. That starchy liquid is the only thickener the sauce gets. Replace it with water or stock and the tomato stays thin and refuses to bind to the beans and the pasta.

Wine Pairing

Gutturnio dei Colli Piacentini DOC: The wine of these exact hills and the one poured with this dish in Piacenza itself. A blend of Barbera and Bonarda, it has Barbera's acidity to cut the rendered pancetta fat and Bonarda's softer fruit to sit against the beans. Look for the frizzante version, whose prickle lifts a thick starchy plate.

Bonarda dell'Oltrepò Pavese DOC: From the hills immediately across the provincial border, made from Croatina, and effectively the same tradition under another name. Dark, lightly bitter on the finish and usually faintly sparkling, it handles the tomato without turning sour and its gentle tannin holds up to the pork fat. Serve it at 57°F (14°C).

Lambrusco di Sorbara DOC: Choose the secco bottling. Sorbara is the palest and most acidic of the Lambruschi, and bubbles with sharp red fruit scrub fat off the palate better than any still wine on this list. It is the classic Emilian answer to a pork based sauce, and it makes a heavy winter plate feel lighter.

Colli Bolognesi Pignoletto DOCG: The white option, for anyone who wants one. Pignoletto is dry, brisk and faintly bitter, with green apple fruit and enough acidity to deal with the fat. It lacks the structure to meet the tomato directly, so it suits a lighter hand on the pancetta, but it is refreshing and genuinely regional.

Romagna Sangiovese DOC: From the other end of Emilia Romagna and the choice when you want a still red with grip. Sangiovese brings sour cherry acidity and a dry, earthy tannin that meets the tomato directly and follows the savoury bean and pork flavours. Pick a young unoaked bottling rather than a riserva, which would overwhelm the dish.

Storage & Reheating

Cooked pisarei keep in their sauce in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 3 days and improve on the second day, as the bean starch continues to bind. Store them together rather than separately, because bare pisarei dry out and harden.

Reheat in a covered pan over low heat with a few tablespoons of water or leftover bean liquid, stirring gently until hot through. They will have absorbed sauce overnight, so expect to loosen the pan. Avoid the microwave, which heats unevenly and turns the dumplings rubbery.

Uncooked shaped pisarei freeze very well. Spread them on a floured tray, freeze them solid, then bag them for up to 2 months. Cook them straight from frozen, allowing 2 minutes more than fresh. The finished dish also freezes for 2 months, though the pasta softens slightly on thawing.

Nutrition

Per serving, based on 4 portions:

Calories: 720 kcal
Total Fat: 24 g
Saturated Fat: 9 g
Trans Fat: 0 g
Unsaturated Fat: 14 g
Cholesterol: 35 mg
Sodium: 890 mg
Total Carbohydrates: 96 g
Fiber: 12 g
Total Sugars: 8 g
Added Sugars: 0 g
Protein: 28 g
Lactose: 0.1 g
Principal micronutrients: folate, iron, potassium, magnesium, calcium, phosphorus, zinc and vitamin B1