Minestrone
I sort of always considered Minestrone a catch-all name for an Italian vegetable soup, which meant something different for each season and each region in Italy. Still, despite my loose definition and lukewarm attitude towards this dish, when mom sent her recipe to me I thought that the moment had finally come where she didn't have a real recipe and just sent me something completely made up. It couldn’t be right, all this labor intensive straining and boiling, for a vegetable soup. Couldn’t we just make the soup and serve it, mom? What I realized however, as I was making it while murmer-practicing my soup-gate victory speech I would gladly delivered once the soup came out no better from the extra work, was the brilliance of it. Mom’s method, to work on the broth for a long time and coax the flavors out of all vegetables, is a fight to keep the balance between texture and flavor. Basically she takes all the vegetables that she wants to flavor this soup, and divides them in half. With the first half she creates a rich, flavorful, silky, velvety broth by cooking them to oblivion over a long simmer and pressing them through a sieve until smooth. The other half are added to the broth until just cooked through, leaving them toothsome and fresh. Look, it’s not always necessary, you can skip the broth making process and still have a really nice soup, but if you have a rainy sunday, and if, like me, December left you feeling like a foie gras, make a huge batch of this. Eat it for dinner and freeze the leftovers in individual containers and bring them to work for lunch for a healthy, hearty meal.
Back to how wrong I was about minestrone, because, yes, I was full of being wrong on this day. In my pre-blogging research I looked up various minestrone recipes in Il Talismano Della Felicita. The intro explains that the word minestrone can evoke the image of a mash-up of whatever you have, cooked and served, approximately and without much regulation. This sentiment, Ada Boni continues, couldn’t be further from the truth. As if the book was admonishing me. Minestrone is governed by the rules of the region, and adhered to strictly, while the vegetables used are governed by what is in season, within certain limitations. Everything is cooked precisely, added to the pot based on their cooking time and carefully calibrated so that nothing overwhelmed anything else. This was further confirmed when my lovely cousin from Florence, Jenny, stopped in for dinner with her boyfriend. Alessandro, who knows a lot about food and is a fantastic cook, immediately asked why I would ever use tomatoes in the minestrone when taking a look at the draft of this post. It’s not that minestrone can’t have tomatoes, it’s just that where he’s from it doesn’t, even in season. Still, I’m not sure why mom uses so much tomato; it’s not listed as a main ingredient other than a few teaspoons of tomato paste in the other recipes I found. After digging through recipes online from different regions, I resigned to this being a recipe that at some point, someone, from somewhere in Italy, taught her, and it’s evolved, someway down the road, and there you go. It's really good, go ahead, make it.
SERVING DETAILS
6-8 Servings
INGREDIENTS
Broth
2 garlic cloves, chopped (with the parsley below)
A handful of fresh parsley, chopped
1 carrot, roughly chopped
1 celery stalk, roughly chopped
1 onion, roughly chopped
½ a large zucchini, roughly chopped
4 fingerling potatoes, peeled and cut in half
¼ of a cup of canned cannellini beans ( you can use dried, however make sure to soak them for at least 24 hours beforehand)
200 ml of tomato passata (puree)
Soup
1 large carrot, finely diced
1 celery stalk, finely diced
1 large onion, finely diced
1 ½ zucchini (or another veg depending on what is in season), finely diced
5 fingerling potatoes, peeled and finely diced
¾ cup canned cannellini beans
50 grams of ditalini pasta
METHOD
Make the vegetable broth:
Heat 4 tablespoons of olive oil in a large soup pot and add the garlic and parsley on med-low heat. Cook until just tender, about 2 minutes, being careful not to brown the garlic.
Add the onions and saute over med-low heat for another 3 minutes, followed by the carrots, zucchini, and celery, for another 3 minutes, then finally the potatatoes and beans for another 3 minutes. For each addition, add a pinch of salt.
Add the tomato passata and 1 litre of water, with a heavy pinch of salt. Bring to a simmer, partially cover and cook for about 2 hours.
Strain the broth through a fine mesh sieve, pushing through the pulp to thicken the broth and set aside. You should finish with a velvety, tomato-ey soup.
This can be made ahead of time, I like to make it over the weekend, as the rest of this recipe can easily be done on a weeknight, and leftovers are delicious at work the next day.
Make the minestrone:
In the same pot you made the broth in, heat 3 tablespoons of olive oil.
Add the onions, carrots and celery and saute for 3 minutes. Then add the potatoes and zucchini, a pinch of salt and saute for another minute.
Add the vegetable broth and a little water if needed to get it to the desired consistency and bring to a simmer.
Cook for about 20 minutes, until all the vegetables are just tender. Add the pasta and cook for about 6 minutes.
Add the beans and cook for another 4 or 5 minutes, or until the pasta is al-dente.
Serve with a splash of olive oil on top and grated parmigiano reggiano.
