Yesterday was a cold, snowy day in Boston - perfect soup weather. I wanted to find a comforting recipe that wouldn't take too long, and could incorporate some Italian style turkey sausage I had bought and needed to use. I also had brought home a huge loaf of really good french bread that was leftover from an event I had been to for school, and was hoping to come up with something to do with it other than make about 15 sandwiches. I remembered a recent Barefoot Contessa episode on the food network where Ina Garten cooks up a delicious looking tomato based soup that she adds stale bread to and drizzles with olive oil and parmesan cheese. This sounded like the perfect snow storm meal to me. I easily found the recipe online when I searched for bread soup. The results brought up a bunch of recipes for something called a "Ribollita", which I learned was a Tuscan bread and vegetable soup. The soup essentially came to be as a way to use up leftovers, since the Italians waste nothing. They would take their old minetsrone soup and add their stale bread to it, reboil it and presto they had another meal. I read Ina's recipe, plus one from Giada and finally a Tuscan Kale soup recipe from Fine Cooking magazine. They all used most of the same ingredients - tomatoes, beans, chicken stock, onions, carrots, celery and herbs, but each had a slight variation. I ended up making a hybrid of all three recipes, substituting elements of one for elements of another. The result was a mighty tasty soup that was perfect for eating curled up on the sofa with a movie and a glass of red wine. You could easily omit the meat for a vegetarian version that will still have loads of flavor. This soup is hearty, stick to your ribs fare, but it is loaded with great vegetables and protein and minimal fat (as long as you don't go overboard with the parmesan, which is tough not to do!). Enjoy!
|
Tuscan Ribollita Ingredients: 3 links Butterball Italian hot turkey sausage 2 tablespoons olive oil 1 cup diced onion 1/2 cup diced celery 1/2 cup diced carrots 2 garlic cloves, chopped 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper 1 tablespoon tomato paste 1 14.5 oz can whole tomatoes 1 14.5 oz can cannellini beans 3 cups kale, rinsed and chopped with stems removed 3 cups chicken stock 1 1/2 cups roughly chopped French or Italian crusty white bread, preferably slightly stale 1/4 cup chopped fresh basil 1 tablespoon lemon juice 1/2 teaspoon grated lemon zest kosher salt and fresh ground pepper olive oil and grated parmesan for garnish Instructions: Heat the olive oil in a large soup pot or dutch oven on the stove over medium high heat. Add the chopped onion and saute until soft, about 3 minutes. Cut a slit in the casing of each sausage and empty the contents into the pot, discard the casings. Break up the sausage with a spoon in the pot until it is in small chunks. Saute with the onion until cooked through. Add the celery, carrots, garlic and red pepper flakes and saute until the vegetables are soft, about 5 minutes. Add the tomato paste and stir to coat the vegetables and sausage. Add the can of whole tomatoes, including the juices to the pot, breaking up the tomatoes with your spoon. Add the chicken stock. Add the beans, rinsed and drained of their juices and the basil. Add the kale and stir to submerge in the liquid. Bring to a boil and then simmer covered for about a half hour. Using a potato masher, mash the contents of the soup a bit to break up some of the beans. I would say about 6 presses around the pot should be enough, you don't want to pulverize all the ingredients. Add the lemon juice and zest to the pot. Next add the bread cubes, stir to incorporate and let simmer until the bread is absorbed into the broth and it is very soft, about 10 minutes. Serve with a drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkle of parmesan cheese. This should serve about 4, or 2 with leftovers. |
Comments