Pasta e ceci alla Romana

Pasta e ceci is my all-time favourite soup. I grew up in Milan, where winters can be quite cold for Italian standards, and my mother would often make this soup for dinner. It is a very comforting and hearty kind of dish and it is also very easy to make.

You can find pasta e ceci (which literally means pasta with chickpeas) everywhere in Italy, however there are many regional versions of the dish. In Tuscany you will not find tomatoes in it, while the Neapolitan version is drier and somewhat creamier. This recipe is for the Roman recipe for pasta e ceci. This is probably the one I like the most, as the addition of anchovies gives the dish a little extra kick.

You can serve pasta e ceci with a huge variety of pasta shapes: short soup pasta like ditalini work really well, but you can also serve it with home-made pasta like maltagliati, lagane or sagne. Make sure to add a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and a little freshly ground black pepper just before serving: it makes a huge difference!