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Lagane e Ceci (Pasta & Chickpea Soup)

  Lagane e Ceci is a well-known southern Italian dish whose roots stem from ancient times when legumes were the staple ingredients, easily accessible with a very long shelf life.  Chickpeas, beans or lentils were alternated and cooked with hand made pasta, feeding the whole family.  This soup is made with dried chickpeas and hand-made ribbons of eggless pasta, but can also be made with  canned chickpeas which are just as good,  and  a short store-bought pasta like ditaletti. Mamma would make it this way when she was time poor.   We however preferred this soup with home-made pasta, rendering it more creamy. Lagane are believed to be the ancestors of today’s lasagne and the oldest form of pasta. The word lagane , like lasagna , comes from ancient Greece where it was used to describe a pasta made of flour and water, cooked on a stone, and then cut into strips. The Roman statesman  Cicero wrote about his passion for the Laganum  or laganas  and the Roman poet Horace, whose writings a
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Torta di Mela e Cotogna (Apple & Quince Cake)



I have been reading through my mother's little recipe book that I wrote about in my last post (click here) and found an apple cake that also uses Lievito Vaniglinato Bertolini, of which I have substituted with Lievito Pane degli Angeli. This cake resembles a tart, but the base is somewhat of a dense cake consistency. The recipe requires apples only, however I have chosen to spread a layer of quince jam before assembling the thin slices of apple.  The recipe for quince jam, can be found here Quince- Mela Cotogna 
Ingredients:

 350g flour
150g sugar
1 sachet Lievito Vaniglinato Bertolini or Lievito Pane degli Angeli (vanilla raising agent 16g in weight)
75g butter
1/2 cup milk
1 egg
1 grated lemon rind 
Quince jam (or jam of choice)
2 apples (I used pink lady)
Icing sugar for dusting
This cake is very simple to make.  In a mixing bowl add all ingredients and mix well until combined. The cake dough will be dense and less buttery.  It will be easy to handle, so rather than rolling it out, you just place it into a well greased tart tray of about 20cm in diameter. With your fingers, press the dough in place trying to achieve the same thickness all around.  Add a layer of jam and then arrange thin slices of apple. Glaze the apples with jam and bake in a moderate oven for 50 minutes.  

Dust with icing sugar.



Enjoy!

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