Ingredients
Scale
- 1 cup fresh fava beans, removed from their thick outer husks
- 4 oz. guanciale (if you can find it) or pancetta, cut into small short strips (lardons)
- 1 cup Pecorino Romano DOP cheese, grated on a microplane grater
- 2 servings (about 1½ cups) dry short tubular pasta, such as mezze rigatoni or calamarata
- Black pepper rady to grind
- Kosher salt
Instructions
- Bring a small pot of water to boil. Add a large pinch of salt and then the fava beans. When it comes back to boil, cook for 1 minute. Give a bean a taste and make sure they are soft enough to eat. Cook more if needed. Drain and rinse under cold water.
- Add the pancetta to a cold sauté pan big enough to hold the pasta once cooked. Turn the heat on to low or medium low and slowly render the fat from the meat. Stir occasionally so all sides of the pancetta cook. Avoid cooking too fast otherwise you will seal the fat inside the pancetta. This will take about 15-20 mins.
- Grind pepper directly into the pan, to taste.
- Add the blanched fava beans to the pancetta and accumulated oil and sauce gently until the inner green bean starts to pop out of the beans inner skin.
- Remove the sauté pan from the heat.
- Cook the pasta in salted water until just ready to eat. The pasta will not cook further in the pan like in other pasta dishes.
- Retain a little pasta water in a measuring cup, drain the pasta and place in the sauce pan. Add the grated cheese and whisk the pasta and cheese into the oil in the pan. Add a little pasta water as need to thin out the sauce.
- Serve immediately passing more grated Pecorino Romano DOP.