I was watching my weekly dose of PBS cooking shows last weekend and happened upon an episode of Lidia's Italy in which she makes a simple pasta of pancetta, chickpeas and spinach. It looked amazing (as do most of the things Lidia Bastianich makes, effortlessly). So I planned to make it this week with some of my own twists. I added soft goat cheese for a little tang, and tomatoes for color and freshness. The whole thing resulted in a creamy but fresh pasta meal with a smoky depth of flavor.
First, I sauteed some pancetta - or, in my case, bacon. No need to add oil to the pan - there's enough in the meat! Speaking of the meat, I put in just about two strips of bacon, maybe less. I didn't want the dish to be meaty, I just wanted the smoky flavor from the bacon. When that began to crsip I poured out some of the rendered bacon fat (you could keep it, too, to cook with, but I didn't have enough to make it worthwhile) and added two cloves of chopped garlic. When those began to turn golden, I added a small can of chickpeas (or garbanzo beans), the cooked gemellini pasta, several nice chunks of goat cheese and a chopped tomato. I also added about a quarter cup of the pasta cooking water to the pan (the starch in the pasta water helps thicken the sauce). I then added two or three big handfuls of fresh spinach, and as soon as it wilted (which took less than a minute) I served the pasta, with some more goat cheese on top and some fresh ground pepper.
