v:gourmet

This is Alice Waters‘ Minestrone Soup from The Art of Simple Cooking which is, indeed, so simple and yet so good. Definitely make a double or triple batch as it keeps well, just gets better with age, and totally hits the spot throughout the week for a quick lunch or totally comforting dinner (with some toasted baguette and tapenade!)  The trick is to cook the soffrito until it is really golden and then the soup sings.

Before I get into the recipe itself, let me just say that there are some incredible dried beans on the market these days. I have found the most incredible varieties, some even locally grown. They are so beautiful it almost seems a shame to cook them. See if you can find them since a) we need to keep heirloom varieties alive, and b) they make cooking that much more pleasurable. As Anne Michaels said in one of her brilliant books, “make beauty a necessity and make necessity beautiful,” or something close to that. You catch the drift. So here’s to the beauty and necessity of a really good bowl of soup. It can heal the world.

Prepare:

1 cup of dry cannellini or other beans, like the calypso beans above, soaked overnight

This will yield 2 1/2 to 3 cups of cooked beans. Reserve the cooking liquid.

Heat in a heavy-bottomed pan over medium heat:

1/4 cup olive oil

Add:

1 large onion, finely chopped

2 carrots, peeled and finely chopped

2 celery stalks, finely chopped

Cook for 15 minutes, or until tender. Add:

4 garlic cloves, peeled and coarsely chopped

5 thyme sprigs

1 bay leaf

2 teaspoons salt

Cook for 5 minutes longer. Add, and bring to a boil:

3 cups water or vegetable stock

When boiling add:

1 leek, diced

1/2 pound green beans, cut into 1-inch lengths

Cook for 5 minutes, then add:

2 medium zucchini, cut into small dice

2 medium tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and chopped

Cook for 15 minutes. Taste for salt and adjust as necessary. Add the cooked beans, along with:

1 cup bean cooking liquid

2 cups of kale or chard, coarsely chopped

Cook for 5 minutes. If the soup is too thick, add more bean cooking liquid. Remove the bay leaf.

Serve in bowls, each one garnished with:

2 tsps extra-virgin olive oil

1 tbsp grated parmigiano (which I don’t add but the kids like it!)

photo credit: Rebekah Richardson-Duffy