Borlotti are the bean of choice for pasta e fagioli, ribollita, and the slow-cooked stews that warm Northern Italian winters. Their speckled pink-and-cream skin fades to a uniform rich brown in the pot, but the flavor that develops — nutty, slightly sweet, with a creamy interior — is what keeps them on the must-stock list.

If you find them fresh in late summer (often shelled into paper bags at farmers’ markets), they need almost no time to cook — twenty minutes in salted water and they’re done. Dried borlotti reward an overnight soak and a longer simmer; treat them with the same patience you’d give a good risotto.