This recipe is typical of a particular region in Italy, Campania, whose main city is Naples. Pasta with mussels and beans is really yummy and everybody, children and adults, will love it! This pasta recipe is also very healthy because it has together carbohydrates and proteins, vitamins, especially vitamin C of parsley, mineral salts and antioxidants. Sea and land mix together perfectly in this really special dish.
Ingredients
280 g of whole durum wheat short pasta
1 kg of mussels
300 g of dry cannellini or borlotti beans, if you want to spare time you can use canned beans
500 g of cherry tomatoes
1 stick of celery
1/2 glass of white wine
2 cloves of garlic
Parsley
Extra virgin olive oil
Salt
pepper
Soak the beans for a whole night. The next day drain the beans and pour in a pot, cover with water and cook for an hour. Rinse the mussels, scrape off all residues and put them in a frying pan with a little extra virgin olive oil, the white wine and two cloves of garlic and cook for 5-10 minutes until they open. Remove the mussels from the shells and save them, save also the cooking liquid. In a large pan pour a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil, two tablespoons of water, chopped celery, some grains of sea salt and the tomatoes, previously rinsed and cut into half. Cook for some minutes and crush the tomatoes with a fork. Add now the beans together with two ladles of their cooking water, keep on cooking for ten minutes. Add the mussel cooking liquid and after a few minutes also the mussels. In the meantime cook the pasta and drain it al dente. Season the pasta with the sauce of beans and mussels. Complete with ground black pepper and chopped parsley and serve!
