4 cups water or a mild vegetable stock 2 cups pre-soaked ceci beans (also known as chickpeas or garbanzo beans) 6 oz fresh or dried pappardelle 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil Sea salt Bring the stock and ceci beans to a simmer and cook until the beans are cooked through. Taste and season with salt – you will need more or less depending on how salty your stock (bouillon) is. To give the broth more body, puree a small handful of cooked beans (20 or so) with a hand blender and them back into the pot. (Not necessary if you opt for a homemade chicken stock which tends to have more body.) While the beans are cooking, boil the pappardelle in well-salted water. Drain and set aside 1/3 of the cooked noodles, you are going to fry these. Also, hang on to a cup (or two) of the pasta water in case you need a bit more liquid for your soup. Heat the olive oil in a large, heavy skillet. Add the reserved noodles and fry them up until they are nice and crispy, don’t let the oil get overly hot, it should be nicely fragrant and able to do its crisping job. Just remember, you are going to use it later in the recipe, so you don’t want it to get to its smoking point. Add the boiled-not-fried noodles into the bean pot and taste for seasoning, salt if needed (add in the reserved pasta water here if you want a bit more broth). Spoon about 3 Tbsp of the olive oil from the skillet into the soup and serve with a generous sprinkling of the fried noodles mixed in at the last minute. A drizzle of your favorite table olive oil is a great way to finish the soup. Serves 4. (Recipe retrieved from www.101cookbooks.com) Click here to purchase