My new affection, much heralded here, for roasted "long cooked broccoli" a la Pizzeria Mozza, expanded my tolerance for long-cooked vegetables to exactly two. The other is green beans, cooked on the stove for several hours with onions, a ham hock or two and, at least in my family, finished with some new potatoes. It's one of the few comfort foods I can make that speaks to good memories from both my and my husband's very separate childhoods: he, the southern-gentleman style blue-eyed Texan, and me, the descendant of Great Depression era immigrants to California from the cold and starving midwest. Though my kitchen produces few repeats, this is a dish we'll enjoy some version of at least once during the cool part of the year, typically in the fall when green beans are especially good.
Yesterday, when rummaging the fridge for dinner inspiration, I realized that I had about a pound or so of fresh small green beans, almost haricot verts in size, that didn't end up used as intended last weekend and some leftover undressed but cooked buccatini, whose diameter was very similar to the beans. That seemed quite promising, and I was thinking more of a fresh pasta dish until I opened the freezer and saw the little package with six fat slices of Beeler's organic bacon from Oregon. At that moment dinner became soup: a lighter, more refined version of the dish we both so love. No hunks, just strands. No knife needed.
And indeed it was all that. So much so that I may never go back to the old way again. This made enough for two hungry diners, with a big cup leftover for my breakfast this morning. A cold, crisp salad of lightly dressed greens and a bottle of a nice '99 Gigondas completed the meal perfectly.
2 tblsp EVOO
1 medium yellow or white onion, halved and sliced into strips
1 pound green beans, trimmed, left whole
3 bay leaves
10 pepper corns
6-8 ounces lean bacon, cut into 1/2" strips
1 qt chicken broth
1 - 1/2 cups cooked pasta, preferably buccatini or another hollow-tubed noodle
In a 4-5 quart sauce pan, soften the onions in the EVOO for about 3-4 minutes, then add all the remaining ingredients except the pasta. Bring to a boil and simmer, covered, for about an hour and a half. Though the beans will be done to the touch before that, more is better. It really does take close to two hours for the flavors to concentrate and sweeten. About five minutes before serving, stir in the pasta.