NanisMinestrone

about

This 'recipe' is pretty forgiving and not very rigid. There are only a few key points and the rest is open for improvisation. The base is onion, garlic, chopped white cabbage/kale/collard, carrots, celery, potato, beans, and pasta. Garlic and onion are pretty important to any dish. The cabbage is strictly required. Its just dumb to make without beans and pasta. Carrots and celery are pretty helpful but if you don't have them you can't use them. Additional favorites include broccoli stems, lettuce leaves, any tough vegetable that is starting to go bad. Remember this is a peasant dish so you are meant to use what you have not some fancy, imported, delicate, specialty. In addition to the base (ideally cannellini) beans and a short tubular pasta (all I can get here is pipette which works) are cooked separately for later addition to the soup.

ingredients

• 1 onion, chopped
• few cloves garlic, chopped
• 1-2 carrots, chopped
• 1-2 celery stalks, chopped
• 1-2 handfuls chopped cabbage
• 1 potato, 1/2" cubes
• 4 chili de arbol
• broccoli stems or other 'scrap' vegetable parts, chopped
• pork, chicken, turkey stock (good stock made from bones)
• 15oz can cannellini beans, washed (better yet cook dry beans)
• 1/3 - 1/2 lb al dente pipette

procedure

• heat enough olive oil to thinly cover the bottom of a 5-6qt pan
• add onion and garlic for 1-2 min until they start letting their water
• add rest of vegetables and cook for an additional 5-10 min until they start to color
• add enough stock to cover the vegetables and a bit more
• add potato
• cover and bring to a gentle simmer
• simmer until the potatoes are tender but not yet falling apart (30-60 min)
• add beans and continue to simmer for 10 more minutes
• turn off heat and add pasta. It will absorb some of the broth so add more warm stock if you must
• let it sit for a while before serving, let it cool fully before refrigerating

Serve with a few Tbs of tomato sauce and grated ramano. Minestrone only gets better with age since all the flavors have a chance to get to know each other.

-- ChristopherPepe - 30 Apr 2009