Ribollita This is as Close as You Can Get In
Content
Ribollita This is as close as you can get in a home kitchen to "reboiled" minestrone, which is made over the course of a few days in the KI kitchen. Have you heard the story of Stone Soup? This is Stone Soup. Bread A few slices of crusty bakery bread like a baguette, French or Italian bread. No challah. All packaged bread has chemicals added to make the bread stay soft, increase its shelf life, etc. Once you get used to eating real bakery bread, you won't even like to be around the smell of supermarket bread. Dry out/toast two or three 1/2" slices in a low oven directly on the rack. They should be as dry as crackers Crush them in a food processor or by hand and set aside the crumbs. This will be the thickening agent for the soup.
Beans 3 c. dried cranberry or Roma beans (borlotti) 2 cl garlic, peeled but left whole sprig of fresh sage leaves from a "poultry blend" or "roasting blend" blister pack in the supermarket produce section Rinse the beans in a heavy pot with a lid like a Le Creuset # 24 (5 1/2 qt) and cover them by a few inches with water. Run cold water from the faucet for about 60 seconds before using it for cooking. Let soak overnight or at least 8 hours. Drain the water and refill with fresh cold water, covering the beans by about 2 inches. Add the 2 cloves of garlic and the sprig of fresh sage leaves. Bring to a boil over high heat, stirring a few times. Skim the foam, cover the pot, and reduce to the lowest possible flame. The beans should barely simmer until really, really soft. Usually about 2 hours. Stir every now & then in the beginning, but don't be afraid to leave the house or do other things while they simmer. You can let them simmer all day long, covered, checking after a few hours to add water if needed. No salt. Alternatively, after you’ve bought them to a boil & skimmed, you can cover the put & place in a low oven as for cholent & cook all day long, overnight, etc.
Battata/Soffritto/Mirepoix 2 medium carrots, peeled & cut into 1/2 moons or 1/4 rounds, about 1/4 inch thick 1 long outer stalk of celery, finely diced 1 medium yellow or purple onion, peeled and 1/4" diced 2 cl garlic, thinly sliced Hot dried red pepper to taste, chopped into flakes & seeds (I usually use 3 whole peppers, chopped, seeds and all.) salt, pepper
3 tbs or so of olive oil Heat up a large pan like a 10" cast iron skillet under medium flame. When hot, add olive oil. Swirl the oil around the pan a few seconds. When it's just smoking, add the hot peps. Stir for 30 seconds, then add the carrots, celery, and onion, and a little more salt & pep than you think. Let the aromatic vegetables burn a little around the edges, adding the sliced garlic toward the end. Just when the garlic gets toasty & a little tan, turn the flame to full blast & start crushing in by hand the tomatoes from: 1 28 oz. or 35 oz. can of Peeled Whole Tomatoes Imported From Italy like Cento Italian Peeled Tomatoes (OU Hechsur). Remove any pieces of tomato skin & woody cores. Don’t add the “topping matter” liquid from the tomato can. You can save it for tomato juice. A few years ago, Manhattan was having a martini craze. There were martini bars, martini happy hours, martini menus. All kinds of concoctions shaken with ice in a martini shaker & strained into a martin glass. I’m not making this up: On one such menu I saw a “Fireball Tomato Martini.” It was a Bloody Mary, neat, in a martini glass, sans celery. Go ahead & caramelize the tomatoes a little bit. Don’t be afraid to burn it a little. After 5 minutes, scrape this mixture into the beans, deglazing with bean water & a rubber spatula if necessary to get all the burnt on crust or “fondutta” from the sides of the pan. That’s very important. Stir it all through and add a little water if it's too thick.
Greens 1 bunch beet greens, dinosaur kale (cavalo nero), or any other long cooking green, washed, bug checked, stemmed, and sliced into 1/2" wide ribbons, trimmed if too big. Turn heat up all the way and bring to a rolling boil, stirring and watching out for eruptions. Add the bread crumbs in a steady stream, stirring them through so they don't clump up. Bring flame down to lowest possible flame again. Potatoes 5 or 6 new potatoes, cut into pieces to taste (The best are Fingerlings or Russian Bananas, when you can get them. You can leave the pebble-sized ones whole and use more than 5 or 6 of them.) 1 tsp finely minced rosemary leaves (from the "Poultry Mix") 1 tsp chopped Italian parsley leaves 1 tsp chopped oregano or marjoram or thyme leaves (from the "Poultry Mix") Diced Parmigiano Reggiano or Grana Padano rinds to taste. Sometimes 7MM has these cheeses. The Knish Shoppe always has them (Star K hechsur).
Continue low simmer until desired consistency, or keep in low oven & serve like cholent. Heat up the rest of the loaf of bread and serve the soup with a little olive oil drizzled over each portion, a few grinds of pepper, a scant pinch of the herbs, and shavings of Parmigiano Reggiano or Grana Padano. Other winter vegetables can be added to this. One of my non-traditional but really yummy tricks is to add a couple of cups of mashed winter squash. Italians love their “zucca,” and it adds a mellow sweetness and complex carbs to this dish for 69 cents a pound. Complex carbs plus beans equals protein. Halve a winter squash, scrape out the seeds & strings, rub some olive oil, salt & pep into the cut sides and roast cut sides down on a jelly roll pan in an oven preheated to 350 degrees for about 45 minutes to an hour. It's done when you can indent the skin with a gentle finger poke. Let cool & scrape flesh off skin, mash with a fork & pack into Tupperware containers. Freezes without penalty. You can use it for a lot of things--it's 100 times better than canned pumpkin for pumpkin pie. Add 2 cups of it to the Ribollita when you add the greens. It disappears, but gives the soup a hauntingly sweet undertone and more body. In spring you can make a thinner version with string beans, asparagus, peas, etc. Once someone called me and said this recipe turned out ok, but it was more like refried beans than soup. If that happens, thin it out to taste with water, of course. Funny how people some people who cook every day are nonetheless reluctant to wing it in even the simplest ways.
Beans 3 c. dried cranberry or Roma beans (borlotti) 2 cl garlic, peeled but left whole sprig of fresh sage leaves from a "poultry blend" or "roasting blend" blister pack in the supermarket produce section Rinse the beans in a heavy pot with a lid like a Le Creuset # 24 (5 1/2 qt) and cover them by a few inches with water. Run cold water from the faucet for about 60 seconds before using it for cooking. Let soak overnight or at least 8 hours. Drain the water and refill with fresh cold water, covering the beans by about 2 inches. Add the 2 cloves of garlic and the sprig of fresh sage leaves. Bring to a boil over high heat, stirring a few times. Skim the foam, cover the pot, and reduce to the lowest possible flame. The beans should barely simmer until really, really soft. Usually about 2 hours. Stir every now & then in the beginning, but don't be afraid to leave the house or do other things while they simmer. You can let them simmer all day long, covered, checking after a few hours to add water if needed. No salt. Alternatively, after you’ve bought them to a boil & skimmed, you can cover the put & place in a low oven as for cholent & cook all day long, overnight, etc.
Battata/Soffritto/Mirepoix 2 medium carrots, peeled & cut into 1/2 moons or 1/4 rounds, about 1/4 inch thick 1 long outer stalk of celery, finely diced 1 medium yellow or purple onion, peeled and 1/4" diced 2 cl garlic, thinly sliced Hot dried red pepper to taste, chopped into flakes & seeds (I usually use 3 whole peppers, chopped, seeds and all.) salt, pepper
3 tbs or so of olive oil Heat up a large pan like a 10" cast iron skillet under medium flame. When hot, add olive oil. Swirl the oil around the pan a few seconds. When it's just smoking, add the hot peps. Stir for 30 seconds, then add the carrots, celery, and onion, and a little more salt & pep than you think. Let the aromatic vegetables burn a little around the edges, adding the sliced garlic toward the end. Just when the garlic gets toasty & a little tan, turn the flame to full blast & start crushing in by hand the tomatoes from: 1 28 oz. or 35 oz. can of Peeled Whole Tomatoes Imported From Italy like Cento Italian Peeled Tomatoes (OU Hechsur). Remove any pieces of tomato skin & woody cores. Don’t add the “topping matter” liquid from the tomato can. You can save it for tomato juice. A few years ago, Manhattan was having a martini craze. There were martini bars, martini happy hours, martini menus. All kinds of concoctions shaken with ice in a martini shaker & strained into a martin glass. I’m not making this up: On one such menu I saw a “Fireball Tomato Martini.” It was a Bloody Mary, neat, in a martini glass, sans celery. Go ahead & caramelize the tomatoes a little bit. Don’t be afraid to burn it a little. After 5 minutes, scrape this mixture into the beans, deglazing with bean water & a rubber spatula if necessary to get all the burnt on crust or “fondutta” from the sides of the pan. That’s very important. Stir it all through and add a little water if it's too thick.
Greens 1 bunch beet greens, dinosaur kale (cavalo nero), or any other long cooking green, washed, bug checked, stemmed, and sliced into 1/2" wide ribbons, trimmed if too big. Turn heat up all the way and bring to a rolling boil, stirring and watching out for eruptions. Add the bread crumbs in a steady stream, stirring them through so they don't clump up. Bring flame down to lowest possible flame again. Potatoes 5 or 6 new potatoes, cut into pieces to taste (The best are Fingerlings or Russian Bananas, when you can get them. You can leave the pebble-sized ones whole and use more than 5 or 6 of them.) 1 tsp finely minced rosemary leaves (from the "Poultry Mix") 1 tsp chopped Italian parsley leaves 1 tsp chopped oregano or marjoram or thyme leaves (from the "Poultry Mix") Diced Parmigiano Reggiano or Grana Padano rinds to taste. Sometimes 7MM has these cheeses. The Knish Shoppe always has them (Star K hechsur).
Continue low simmer until desired consistency, or keep in low oven & serve like cholent. Heat up the rest of the loaf of bread and serve the soup with a little olive oil drizzled over each portion, a few grinds of pepper, a scant pinch of the herbs, and shavings of Parmigiano Reggiano or Grana Padano. Other winter vegetables can be added to this. One of my non-traditional but really yummy tricks is to add a couple of cups of mashed winter squash. Italians love their “zucca,” and it adds a mellow sweetness and complex carbs to this dish for 69 cents a pound. Complex carbs plus beans equals protein. Halve a winter squash, scrape out the seeds & strings, rub some olive oil, salt & pep into the cut sides and roast cut sides down on a jelly roll pan in an oven preheated to 350 degrees for about 45 minutes to an hour. It's done when you can indent the skin with a gentle finger poke. Let cool & scrape flesh off skin, mash with a fork & pack into Tupperware containers. Freezes without penalty. You can use it for a lot of things--it's 100 times better than canned pumpkin for pumpkin pie. Add 2 cups of it to the Ribollita when you add the greens. It disappears, but gives the soup a hauntingly sweet undertone and more body. In spring you can make a thinner version with string beans, asparagus, peas, etc. Once someone called me and said this recipe turned out ok, but it was more like refried beans than soup. If that happens, thin it out to taste with water, of course. Funny how people some people who cook every day are nonetheless reluctant to wing it in even the simplest ways.
