Farro and beans soup

This is another recipe learned from the book La mensa dei liguri – Storia di una cucina “diversa” which is only available in Italian from what I know, but is definitively worth reading, if you want to know more about the beautifully rich culture of my region, which history is strictly interconnected not only with the one of the Mediterranean Sea, but with all Europe, Asia and the Americas. This recipe follows the true spirit of an international port: the farro being a common ingredient since the Neolithic and commonly used in the Roman Legion, chickpeas from the Middle East and all the other ingredients from the Americas, let’s see them more in detail.

The ingredients

As explained, farro has been widely used since the beginning of time, and is no surprise, since doesn’t usually required chemical product for its cultivation and have very good nutritional values, keeping the calories quite low (340kcal per 100g) and being rich in Metionina, an essential amino acid that is not produced in our body and can only be introduced by consumption. Farro also contain proteins, vitamin B and fibres (source wikipedia)

Tomatoes on the opposite of what is common knowledge, is actually a fruit and more specifically a berry. They originally come from Mexico and a moderate source of vitamin C. They are mostly water and they are basically everywhere in the Mediterranean diet. Personally I think that there is nothing better than tomatoes and a pinch of salt for a quick snack in the hot days of summer!

Chickpeas origins have been dated as far as 7500 years ago and their use is widespread across the world, from India to Africa to Europe, their presence is justified by the high nutritional value and practical conservation of these “magic beans”. Not many knows that the “aquafaba“, the water obtained by either cooking them or from the canned version is a thick liquid containing a mix of starch and trace amounts of protein, with emulsifying, binding, and thickening properties. It works well as a flavourless, odourless egg replacer in recipes: 1 tablespoon of aquafaba = 1 egg yolk, 2 tablespoons = 1 egg white, and 3 tablespoons = 1 one whole egg (source Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health)

Borlotti beans are a variant of Cranberry beans, bred to have a thicker skin and as well as the Cannellini beans (or Navy Beans) are part of the same family. Not many knows that all beans contains Phytohaemagglutinin, which is a lectin, a slightly toxic substance that is easily deactivated by cooking them at boiling point (100 °C) for ten to thirty minutes. Slow cooker are usually not up to the task! Symptomps could be nausea and diarrhea, so cook well your beans! Besides that, beans are very cheap, easy to store and rich in potassium, but also contains proteins, carbohydrates, fibers and sodium, so they are literally a mine of essential building blocks for our body.

The recipe

This recipe is very easy but require a bit of preparation. First of all you will need the following:

• 500 gr of farro
• 250 gr borlotti beans
• 200 gr cannellini beans
• 100 gr chickpeas
• 1 bunch of parsley (in substitution you can use coriander)
• extra virgin olive oil (approx 5 table spoons)
• 1 tomato
• garlic (one clove)
• chili, at taste
• white wine (I use the very cheap Sauvignon Blanc or similar very tasty cheap wine)

The night before you need to take three containers and put the farro in one, the beans (dried borlotti and cannellini) in the next and the chickpeas in the last, then cover them in water…I usually put up to a finger of water over the top. This of course only for the dried ingredients, the canned can be cooked straight.

The following day, you need to cook them still separate; reason is that the farro and all the other ingredients have different cooking points, then you want to cook your beans well and lastly you want to keep the aquafaba of the chickpeas. While they are cooking chop the parley in large pieces, cut finely the garlic and peal and dice the tomato.

Get a pot and put the oil to heat up, on very low fire, with garlic, chili, parsley and the tomato. The trick here is to keep the fire low and mix, so to avoid burning the ingredients, but instead let them release their flavour and make a kind of oily sauce. At this point, add the farro and then all the other ingredients, making sure to add a little bit of the respective cooking water as well, depending on how “soupy” you like it. Cook for a little and mix everything, letting evaporate the liquid until it reaches the density you like.

Serve in individual cups, with a bit of oil on top and some bread, add parsley as decoration if you like! This soup is very filling, I usually make eight big portions from the quantity above, but is very nice in winter.