This recipe takes a little planning, and alot of time, but the results are.........well, according to my friend and family, most excellent. After feasting on it the first day, you are usually left with upwards of 5-6 quarts of leftovers, so the time invested will either stock your freezer or make you many friends. It is also easy on the pocketbook (considering the portions) to make because it contains beans, cabbage, potatoes, celery, onions, and parsley, simmered in chicken stock, butter, olive oil and grated romano for hours, then finished with a dollop of pesto and cooked some more. Twenty minutes before serving, I ladle a few quarts into another pot and add noodles. When finished, serve with copious quantities of more romano. Doesn't now sound like the perfect time for making it?
If you are lucky enough to have a nearby farmers market, you can get most of the produce needed this time of year. If you are shopping for the ingredients at the store, it will be easy to find the ingredients any time of year. So, this weekend, while Aunty and I wandered around the saturday berkeley farmers' market, I purchased the fresh produce I needed and asked her about her thoughts on alternate beans to use in the recipe. Aunty is five years older than I, and thus the keeper of this much more familial food knowledge, so I value her opinion highly. Also, if there is anyone in the world who is capable of detecting the slightist bit of ANYTHING in a particular dish, and capable of reporting on it accurately, the person in my life like this is my sister (the monkey's aunty, thus the title). She suggested using some heirloom beans she had in her cupboard, and we agreed to a swap of ingredients for finished product.
With the beans soaked, I rinse them and place them in an 8 quart pot with about two quarts of veggie stock. Then I assemble the rest of the ingredients to look at an optical illusion that is part of this dish (the first picture up top). Everytime I see the ingredients all laid out before me I think: "I'm gonna need a much larger pot than this one, just look at all this stuff!" But I have something called faith. Faith that comes from witnessing miracles. Faith that with only an inch or so of the pot sides still showing, I can add a whole cabbage into this soup. Okay, faith really that cabbage is just like the rest of the universe, made up of alot of space. The reality is that you do not just plop in the head of cabbage. Doing this, after chopping and adding everything else, would indeed displace enough volume to slosh over the sides. But sliced up fine, minced even, and added slowly in batches, you can indeed add the entire thing.
Put it on a low simmer for at least three hours. The cabbage will disappear from sight, as will most of the potatoes and celery. When this has happenned, add the pesto and cook for another hour. While waiting for this last bit, and trying not to eat it before it is done, I recommend baking a nice sourdough loaf of something. Which of course means you just have to dip the bread into the soup, to do any final tasting adjustments, right?
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And since folks appreciate an actual recipe, and I have a desire in keeping my new friends interested, I offer this as a generic outline for making this soup.
Minestrone
1 lb of dried pinto, pink or cranberry beans
1-3 quarts of chicken stock
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup olive oil
2 medium onions (yellow or white or both)
2-6 cloves of garlic (optional here, lighter on the garlic is more great grandmas style on this one)
6 or so stalks of celery (more if using smaller heart sections)
4-5 big white potatoes (russet, red or white, yukon gold)
1 bunch italian parsley
15 ounce can of stewed or diced tomatoes (fresh tomatoes will work too but make sure to use plenty of salt and include all juices - summertime is best for using fresh)
1/4 - 1/2 lb of Pecorino Romano
1 smallish green cabbage
Pesto fixings:
1 cup chopped basil
1 Tbsp - 1/4 cup pine nuts
Parmesan
salt and olive oil to taste
Soak beans overnight. Or for two nights (especially for the harder pintos) if you have the luxury time and memory to do so. Rinse and drain soaked beans and transfer to an 8 quart pot. Add water and chicken stock until at least a third full. Adjust salt according to how much stock you use. Bring to a boil. Add olive oil and butter. Add chopped onions, celery and garlic. Peel potatoes and dice to no bigger than a fingertip and add (note: DO NOT add actual fingertips.) Mince parsley and add. Add tomatoes and any juices possible. Add about a cup of grated romano. (if you are using a Microplane this may turn out to be closer to 2 cups; the pre-grating weight is 3-5 ounces regardless of grater used.) Cut main stem from cabbage, slice very thin and add (in batches as it will be hard to incorporate at this point.) Cook together, covered with occasional stirrings, at a simmer for a few hours. Add 1/4 - 1/2 cup of fresh pesto (go with more like 1/4 cup if using store bought), stir and simmer for at least another hour. Remove one meals worth to another pot, add tagliarini (egg fettucine will work fine) and cook until pasta is soft (soup is usually getting paste-like before adding pasta, so add some water to compensate for what the cooking will take, more for dried, less for fresh.) Serve with a fresh loaf of your favorite sourdough and copious quantities of grated romano. Oh yeah, just about any wine will go great with this.
Enjoy!
Please let me know what you think if you make this one. The folks who I have given this recipe to refer to it simply as "the soup" then their eyes get glazed over as they manage a Homer-esque "Mmmmm, minestrone." If I had a dime for each individual person I have served this to and they enjoyed it, I would be a......well, at the very least 10 bucks richer, or about halfway on my way to making another batch.
4 comments:
Wow that does sound good! Thanks so much for sharin the recipe.. I've added it to the "To-try" list and kind of nudged it closer to the top. ;)
Hi D-man, I found you through Lis's site and am pleased to see that you live in Oakland since I lived there/Berkeley/SF for many years- (and sigh miss it greatly). The soup looks great especially with all that cheese spilling over. And yes, there is nothing like all those heirloom beans you get at the Berkeley farmers market. Nice blog!
NICE Dylan!!! VERY nice! Aunt Sharon in Seattle LOVES your page..your little "monkey" is darling.. and YOU a good cook Sir! I'll be trying the "soup" we needs it up here.. Take care, God Bless!
Ingredients look like they could be interchanged, the time not much different. The time of adding cabbage and the sauteing of veggies must make for some differnece in appearance, I wonder how much taste difference. Be interesting to compare side by side.
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