Croatian fažol is the rustic bean soup I've been yearning for

This epitome of peasant fuel, this hearty combo of chunky beans, pasta and smoked meat is where this bowl resides.

Croatian fažol (bean soup). Source: Belinda Luksic

People tell me I'm my father's daughter. I have his gregarious nature, bright-eyed enthusiasm, fierce loyalty to family and his nose. 

It turns out, I've also inherited his eating habits, despite a childhood where I moaned at anything Slavic.

It was my dad who inspired my mother to cook Croatian food five nights out of seven, and whose devotion to the potato bordered on religion. Half our suburban backyard was a potato field. Need I say more?

My dad, too, thought nothing of eating the same dish four weeks straight, no matter how much we complained. I might be overstating things, but switching the potato for rice does not a new dish make.

It was my dad who inspired my mother to cook Croatian food five nights out of seven and whose devotion to the potato bordered on religion. Half our suburban backyard was a potato field.

School friends sparked envy with tales of Maccas dinners and Chinese takeaway, crumbed lamb chops and bangers and mash. The variety of it made my head spin. That there were rarely leftovers was foreign to me. Ours could feed an entire village.

Cooking for a crowd is what Croatians do best, and a trait my mum fully embraced. I like to think it was training for when my brothers reached their teens. In reality, it was all my dad knew growing up on a farm in Croatia's north, where vats of beans, smoked meat and fermented vegetables were staples during the snowy winter months.

Fažol: A hearty affair. Source: Belinda Luksic

Our garden in Bexley was a microcosm of this rural life. We'd store our potato crop in the garage, turn bumper tomato harvests into passata and crush grapes barefoot for wine, our feet left purple for days.

Things took a particularly peasant turn in winter. We were in the trenches, faced with bean soup for days, followed by sarma (cabbage rolls stuffed with minced meat and rice). When mum cracked out the spag bol, you could taste our relief. When she branched into Chinese food - a sweet and sour fish recipe from the Australian Women's Weekly - we partied on the street.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately while travelling in Croatia. My love of chemists has been superseded by a fascination with supermarkets and roadside diners (a story for another time).

I've surrendered all hope of finding an Asian aisle or anything resembling Indian fire or spice. What's on the shelves in Croatian supermarkets is the accoutrements for traditional Croatian fare. Sacks of dried borlotti beans or soup packs sit alongside heads of kiseli kupus (sour cabbage), smoked meats, paprika and loads of cheese and deli meats. It's truly a deli, market and bakery all rolled into one, with a token aisle for cleaning products.

All these trips to the supermarket must have triggered some latent Stockholm syndrome - what I like to call the "Bexley prison". Without truly realising it, I was filling my shopping basket with packs of smoked pork ribs, kransky sausages, soup vegetables and borlotti beans, ready to make the dish that I had suffered a lot through many winters: fažol.

This rustic bean soup, pronounced fa-zhol, is the epitome of peasant fuel: a hearty combo of chunky beans, pasta and smoked meat. In our home, mum ditched the pasta for barley and sometimes added ham hock instead of pork rib.

Slowly simmer to release the smoky pork flavour. Source: Belinda Luksic

Along the Dalmatian coastline, where ancient Venetians left their mark, white cannellini beans are the star. Head north towards the Austrian border, where winters take an Arctic nosedive, and its borlotti beans. 

From Italy to Dalmatia and onto America, where it's known as pasta e fazool, this soup is so popular it has been eaten, written about and also immortalised in the Dean Martin classic, That's Amore: "When the stars make you drool, just like pasta fazool, that's amore."

I read somewhere that Dean Martin was a sucker for the Italian version, but give my dad a few days with him, and I bet he, too, would have been singing fažol for his supper.

When the stars make you drool, just like pasta fazool, that's amore.

There's only a medium soup pot in my Airbnb, but big enough for my needs. After all, I didn't inherit the Croatian gene to feed a crowd. I make do with a soup pack, which substitutes celery for swede and a lonely cabbage leaf, and start chopping, dicing and sweating a bed of veggies on which to lay the smoked pork bones.

Prepping the ingredients to make fazol. Source: Belinda Luksic

I make a roux, whisking in a mountain of paprika and enough garlic to scare away an army of vampires. I add it to the fažol on a low simmer, until it's as thick and tasty as any my parents ever made. 

It's delicious and yet, also, a bloody miracle. The kind of miracle that calls to mind biblical loaves and fish. Day three of the stuff (yes, I know) and I've barely made a dent. 

A friend helpfully points out that I don't have to eat it every night; I could just freeze a batch. It's too late, I laugh. I truly am my father's daughter.   

 

Love the story? Follow the author here: Instagram @belindaluksic. Photographs by Belinda Luksic. Photography, styling and food preparation by Belinda Luksic. 

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Croatian pork and bean soup (fažol)

A rustic pork and bean soup to keep you warm on cold winter nights.

Serves a village, but really 6

Ingredients

• 400 g dried or canned borlotti beans
• 1 cup barley
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 large onion, finely chopped
• 2 medium carrots, peeled and diced
• 1 celery stalk, diced
• 250 g smoked pork ribs (can also use ham hock or pancetta)
• 2-3 Kransky sausages
• Parsley, for garnish

Roux

• 2 tbsp plain flour
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tbsp paprika powder
• 4-6 cloves garlic
• ¼ bunch parsley, chopped

Method

1. Soak dried beans overnight in cold water (if using canned beans, drain).
2. Rinse the barley in cold water and drain well.
3. Rinse pork ribs.
4. Heat oil over low heat in a large (5-litre) saucepan. Add onion, carrot and celery and saute for 5-10 minutes until onion is translucent and vegetables are soft.
5. Add smoked pork rib, kransky sausages, drained beans and barley, and cover with 8-10 cups of cold water.
6. Bring slowly to a boil, then reduce heat to low and simmer uncovered for 2-3 hours until the meat is falling off the bones and the beans are cooked.
7. Remove the smoked rib from the saucepan and let it cool. Remove skin and bone (discard), coarsely shred the meat and return to the pan. 
8. Remove and slice the kransky sausage and return to the pan.
9. Stir in roux and let simmer for another 30-60 minutes.
10. For the roux: In a small saucepan, whisk together oil and flour and cook over low heat for 1-2 minutes until it browns. Whisk in paprika, garlic and parsley and cook for another minute. Slowly whisk into the soup liquid, one ladle at a time, to make a smooth sauce. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 1-2 minutes until it thickens.
11. To serve: Ladle into a bowl, top with parsley and serve with crusty bread.

Note

• Smoked pork ribs can be found at most butchers. Kransky sausages can be found at specialty delicatessens