A Big Little Recipe has the smallest-possible ingredient list and big everything else: flavor, creativity, wow factor. Psst—we don't count water, salt, black pepper, and certain fats (specifically, 1/2 cup or less of olive oil, vegetable oil, and butter), since we're guessing you have those covered. Today, we’re rethinking pasta e ceci.
I have a lot of favorite Genius Recipes, like banana-avocado toast, caramelized-cream eggs, cobbler with hot-sugar crust, but perhaps the simplest—the one I turn to on the tiredest of weeknights—is Victoria Granof’s pasta con ceci.
This dish looks like SpaghettiOs, which I mean in the nicest way, and comes together almost as quickly: You crisp garlic in olive oil, stir in tomato paste, add drained chickpeas, itty-bitty ditalini, and boiling water, and ta-da, you just made dinner. More olive oil and chile flakes come in at the end. Maybe you pour yourself a glass of red wine.
But the tomato paste is the ingredient to pay attention to. Though this pantry staple is already concentrated, caramelizing it (which happens almost instantly) super-charges its umami flavor. Which got me thinking: What other ingredients are paste-like and chock-full of umami?
Miso. When you swap this ingredient into Granof’s recipe, you end up with a just as easy but entirely different result—halfway between miso soup and pasta e ceci. Like tomato paste, miso becomes more complex once stir-fried.
With respect to type: White miso works best here. Not only is its lighter color easier to caramelize (going from dark brown to darker brown can be tricky to judge), but its mellower, sweeter flavor compliments (and doesn’t overpower) the pasta and chickpeas. I love Miso Master, whose Organic Mellow White Miso is delicious enough to eat by the spoonful, which I may or may not have done once or twice in the testing of this recipe, but who’s to say?
And instead of garlic and crushed red pepper flakes, I turn to one ingredient that gets both jobs done: Lao Gan Ma’s spicy chili crisp. A year-ish ago, I wrote about how this is “good on everything,” and, you know, it’s still true. This spicy, oily condiment has chiles, of course—but also crunchy soy nuts, onion, and garlic. It's perfect slicked across the broth, where it adds even more umami (thank you, MSG!) and a sunset-red hue.
In a moment when everyone is stock-piling pantry staples (you can read more about practical steps to prepare for the COVID-19 outbreak here), this is the comforting, nourishing recipe I make, from ingredients I always have around.
| 2 | tablespoons canola oil |
| 3 | tablespoons white miso |
| 2 1/2 | cups just-boiled water |
| 1 | (15-ounce) can chickpeas, drained |
| 1/2 | cup ditalini |
| 2 | teaspoons chili crisp (such as Lao Gan Ma or Fly By Jing), with oil, adjusted to taste |
| 2 | tablespoons canola oil |
| 3 | tablespoons white miso |
| 2 1/2 | cups just-boiled water |
| 1 | (15-ounce) can chickpeas, drained |
| 1/2 | cup ditalini |
| 2 | teaspoons chili crisp (such as Lao Gan Ma or Fly By Jing), with oil, adjusted to taste |
A New Way to Dinner, co-authored by Food52's founders Amanda Hesser and Merrill Stubbs, is an indispensable playbook for stress-free meal-planning (hint: cook foundational dishes on the weekend and mix and match ‘em through the week).
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Written by: Emma Laperruque
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