Ribollita

One of Sioban’s favorite winter soup recipe to share:

Serves 6

Ingredients

250 g dried cannelloni beans soaked overnight                

2 medium red onions, peeled and finely chopped             

2 stalks celery, finely chopped                                        

1 large carrot, finely chopped                                    

300 g silver beet, washed, trimmed and sliced       

800 g cavolo nero, washed, trimmed and sliced               

¼ green cabbage finely sliced                                        

450 gm crushed tin tomatoes                                         

3 tbsp grated parmesan      

5 tbsp olive oil             

½ small red chilli     

Extra virgin olive oil          

350 g stale bread cut into 5 mm slices

sea salt and pepper

handful cooking salt

2 tbsp chopped parsley

Drain the soaked beans and put them into a large saucepan.  Cover with plenty of cold water, add the cooking salt and bring to the boil.  Lower the heat and cook for at least 1 hour or until the beans are cooked, the cooking liquid will be reduced a lot.

Meanwhile, in another pot, heat the olive oil.  Add the onion, celery and carrot and season with some salt and pepper and sauté on low heat for at least 10 minutes, until they have caramelised a little. Add the silver beat, cabbage and cavalo nero and sauté for a little longer, 5 minutes at least.

Cover with 3 litres of water, bring to a boil and add the chilli and crushed tomatoes.  When it comes to the boil, lower the heat and simmer for 1 ¼ hours. Check the seasoning and adjust accordingly, with salt and pepper.

Drain the cannelloni beans, keeping about 1 cup of the cooking water.  Puree half of the beans with this reserved water and leave the rest of the beans whole.  Add lots of beans to the soup and simmer for another 10 minutes.  Divide your stale bread into 6 bowls and pour over the hot soup. The bread will absorb all the vegetable stock of the soup, so it will become dense rather than liquid. Garnish with some drizzled good-quality extra virgin olive oil, grated parmesan and chopped parsley.

** You want to use good quality sourdough or artisan bread that is at least four days old as you need it to be stale and dense.

**A nice ingredient to add to give good flavour is the remaining skin of the parmesan ( Reggiono if you have it) You just add this in during the cooking process.