Ham Pasta — The Anchor Dish That Holds the Table Together

Early March and the one-year anniversary of the pandemic is approaching, which is a milestone that nobody wants to celebrate and everybody needs to acknowledge, the way you acknowledge the anniversary of a war or a hurricane or any catastrophe that changed the landscape permanently. March 2020 to March 2021. One year of masks. One year of distance. One year of cooking for two when the table was built for sixteen. One year of leaving food on porches and meeting babies through windows and watching my mother forget me through a mask.

At the hospital, the mood is cautiously — the word everyone uses is cautiously, always cautiously, as if optimism without the modifier is dangerous — hopeful. The vaccination rate among staff is climbing. The admissions are dropping. The cafeteria is still running at full capacity but the energy has shifted from crisis to recovery, the way a hospital's energy shifts after any disaster: the initial response gives way to the rebuilding, and the rebuilding is slower and less dramatic but more important.

I am planning the return of Sunday dinner. Not yet — not this month, the vaccinations need time, the immunity needs to build — but I am planning. I cleaned the extra chairs that have been stacked in the garage since March 2020. I polished the dining table. I took the cloth tablecloth out of the drawer and washed it and ironed it and hung it in the closet where it waits for the next deployment. The preparation is the optimism. The preparation is my version of cautiously hopeful — cleaning the chairs, ironing the cloth, planning the menu, believing that the table will be full again because the table must be full again and because my belief has always been stronger than any virus.

I made habichuelas guisadas this week — the staple, the anchor, the dish that appears on my table more than any other because it is the simplest and the most profound, the beans that are never from a can, always dried, always soaked overnight, always slow-cooked with sofrito and tomato sauce and a ham bone and the patience of a woman who understands that beans, like families, cannot be rushed.

The habichuelas guisadas I made this week were built around a ham bone — that’s always been the secret, the thing that turns dried beans into something that tastes like Sunday — and when I had ham left over from trimming the bone, I turned it into this pasta the next evening, because nothing in my kitchen goes to waste and because the same patience I bring to slow-cooked beans I brought to this dish. It isn’t habichuelas, but it carries the same impulse: use what you have, cook it with care, feed the people you love. For now, that’s the two of us. Soon — cautiously, hopefully soon — it will be the whole table.

Ham Pasta

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 25 minutes | Total Time: 35 minutes | Servings: 4

Ingredients

• 12 oz penne or rotini pasta
• 2 cups cooked ham, diced (about 3/4 lb)
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 medium yellow onion, diced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 can (14.5 oz) diced tomatoes, with juices
• 1/2 cup low-sodium chicken broth
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• Salt to taste
• 1/2 cup frozen peas (optional)
• 1/4 cup fresh parsley, chopped
• Grated Parmesan, for serving

Instructions

1. Cook the pasta. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook pasta according to package directions until al dente. Reserve 1/2 cup of pasta water before draining, then drain and set aside.
2. Sauté the aromatics. Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the diced onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened and translucent, about 5 to 6 minutes. Add the garlic and cook 1 minute more until fragrant.
3. Add the ham. Add the diced ham to the skillet and cook, stirring, for 3 to 4 minutes until the edges begin to brown lightly.
4. Build the sauce. Pour in the diced tomatoes with their juices and the chicken broth. Stir in the oregano, smoked paprika, and black pepper. Bring to a gentle simmer and cook for 8 to 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the sauce thickens slightly.
5. Add peas and pasta. If using peas, stir them in now and cook 2 minutes until warmed through. Add the drained pasta to the skillet and toss well to coat, adding a splash of reserved pasta water to loosen the sauce if needed.
6. Finish and serve. Taste and adjust salt. Remove from heat, stir in fresh parsley, and serve immediately with grated Parmesan on top.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 480 | Protein: 28g | Fat: 12g | Carbs: 58g | Fiber: 4g | Sodium: 890mg