Category Archives: pasta

M-M-M-Minestrone!

16 Wednesday Oct 2013

Posted by in comfort food, healthy, italian, kids, pasta, Sauces, soup, Vegetarian

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homemade minestrone
parmegiano, parmesan
Pity the poor American like me growing up with that disgusting canned minestrone soup in the 80’s. Hey, I loved it at the time, I really did, especially loaded with crumbled saltines, sometimes so many saltines that I could have eaten my soup with a fork.
Real minestrone–of which there are countless variations–is nothing like canned soup. Well, no homemade soup is like canned soup. These days it is so easy to get ‘better’ soup from a box or even fresh from a refrigerated section of some fancy store like Wegmans or Wholefoods. But I’m not sure it’s worth it unless you’re pressed for time. Homemade soup is not hard. Homemade soup is nutritious. There are plenty of soups (such as a basic vegetable soup) that can be ready in 20 minutes. Kids love soup.
For today’s version, I am heavily inspired by the amazing Giorgio Locatelli who owns Locanda Locatelli in London and writes (or at least used to write) a column in the Sunday Newspaper (can’t remember if it was the Observer or the Guardian though). Here are some of his ideas:
– Make minestrone any time of year, and use what’s in season.
– Good minestrone means a good balance between vegetables and starch, be it potatoes, rice, pasta, etc.
– Add in the vegetables according to cooking time, for example, potatoes go in last so they don’t fall apart in the soup.
– Serve with olive oil or pesto or just plain.
My tips:
– Use dried beans that you have soaked and cooked till tender.
– Don’t overcook pasta if you are using.
– Save your parmesan rinds for soup!
– Use a vegetable stock you know and trust. I don’t like the sweet ones. Bleck.

Ingredients for Autumn Minestrone
4-6 servings depending on how hungry
1 onion, chopped finely
2-3 spring onions chopped
1 garlic clove, sliced finely (2 cloves for the garlic lovers)
1 carrot, chopped
1 large celery, chopped
1 tomato, chopped
1 1/2 to 2 cups cooked cannellini (or borlotti) beans
3-4 large leaves of Kale (tuscan or lavender), chopped
or 3-4 large leaves of Spinach
1 potato, cubed
3 cups vegetable stock (or 3 cups water and one vegetable bouillon)
1 parmesan rind
olive oil
About 8 oz of pasta, such as penne, ditalini or cavatelli
salt and pepper to taste
To serve:
extra virgin olive oil
pesto (optional)

1. Start with the soffritto. Heat up olive oil (don’t be shy with the olive oil) and gently fry the onion, carrot, celery and garlic till soft. Don’t burn.
2. Add in the stock, beans, kale (or spinach), tomato and parmesan rind.
3. Taste and add salt and pepper as needed.
4. When soup is looking nearly done (kale is softening, tomato is breaking down), add in the potato.

minestrone halfway point

Already looking like a bowl of Christmas

5. Meanwhile heat up salted water and cook pasta until al dente. Strain and set aside. Do not rinse.
6. Check the soup and when the potato is tender, it is done.
7. Portion out the pasta into bowls and top with the soup, salt and pepper, a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and pesto if desired.

penne pastaminestrone

Arugula (rocket) and almond pesto
2 cloves garlic, smashed and chopped
1/4 cup almonds, chopped
about 12 basil leaves
3/4 bag baby arugula salad or 3 cups packed arugula
about 1 – 1 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil or so
1/4 to 1/3 cup grated parmegianno reggiano
Plenty of freshly ground salt and pepper.

My favorite is plain old basil and pine nut pesto. NOTHING tops it. But use what you have, and this is pretty good too.
1. If you have a food processor, throw everything in but the extra virgin olive oil. Pulse a few times and then hit blend while slowly drizzling the extra virgin olive oil through the top. If you need more than 1/2 cup, that is fine. Make it the consistency you like. Add as much salt and pepper as you like.
2. If using a blender, add everything in (even the extra virgin olive oil). Alternate pulsing with using a spatula or spoon to push everything down. Keep trudging until everything is incorporated to a smooth pesto.
pestoDSC_0012
This soup is just fine and dandy on it’s own. It doesn’t need the pesto. But it is delicious with it and you are getting the extra bonus of flavor from the raw garlic and arugula. Before you eat, stir the pesto in. Otherwise it will overpower the soup.

Finished minestrone

Buon appetito!

Pasta e fagioli part 1: the short version

27 Friday Sep 2013

Posted by in comfort food, italian, kids, pasta, quick and awesome, soup, vegan, Vegetarian

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pasta e fagioli
Pasta e fagioli, or pasta and beans, is sometimes called pasta fazul in this country, apparently because of the Neopolitan accent that softened the ‘fagioli’ to ‘fasule’ and then got corrupted to ‘fazul’.

For those non-italian americans like me who didn’t grow up with pasta e fagioli, let me just tell you this is a delicious, rustic and cheap-to-make bowl of comfort.

I’ve been watching a lot of italian cooking videos. My italian is not great, and everyone speaks too fast, but I can find my way through the simple recipes. I also have a Fiorentin cookbook (Il Club delle Cuoche) by Luisana Messeri which I have been slowly, painfully translating–as in one sentence every few months. But it’s fun and I feel like I’m learning a lot.

So far my research has taught me that the recipe for pasta e fagioli varies as much as a chili or a chicken noodle soup recipe does in this country–from blending all the soup together to blending half the beans or none of the beans at all.

I decided I want to make this dish 2 ways–the quickie version and the more traditional slow way. There is one step that should not be skipped and that’s soaking and cooking the dried beans (borlotti or cannellini). Please don’t use the canned stuff. They are mushy and not as nutritious.

cannellini beans

Ingredients for quick pasta e fagioli
adapted from Cucina con Ale and Il Club delle Cuoche

500g or about 2 cups of beans
250g or about 4 cups of pasta
1 carrot chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 celery, chopped
1 onion chopped
1 bay leaf
1 small rind of parmesan
1 cup or 4 ladle spoons of passata or pureed tomatoes
olive oil
vegetable stock (or water)
some of the pasta water
salt and pepper to taste
parmesan for garnish (optional)

1. The slow version (which I willl try next) involves soaking the beans overnight and cooking them directly in the soup. For my quick version, soak and cook the beans ahead of time and throw them in the soup near the end. You can do the overnight thing or use the quick-soak method (boil dried beans rapidly for 10 minutes, turn off heat and soak for 1 hour. Then cook about hour, hour and a half till tender).

2. Heat up a generous amount of olive oil in a soup pot or deep frying pan and gently cook the onion, garlic, bay leaf, carrot and celery till soft.

3. When the vegetables are soft, add in vegetable stock, the rind of parmesan, the passata and the beans. Let cook for about 10 minutes and taste. Add more seasoning if necessary. Remove the parmesan rind before serving.

4. While the soup is cooking, heat up salted water for the pasta. I used ziti but recommend a shorter pasta such as tubetti or ditalini. A popular choice is to throw in a mixed pasta selection–all the broken pieces at the bottom of your pasta container that have been adding up. Cook pasta a little under al dente as it will cook more once it’s in the sauce.

5. When the pasta is almost done, ladle it into the sauce. Add a little of the pasta water for thickening. Let cook for a couple minutes until the pasta is ready (chewy not mushy). The pasta will absorb some of the sauce so you need enough that it won’t completely cook away. On the soupy side is better, as I learned! You can see from my pic that I added a little too much pasta and did not have enough sauce. It was still delicious though and my daughter the soup monster ate every last bite.

6. Serve as is or with some parmesan and extra virgin olive oil. If you skip the parm then this is vegan!

pasta e fagioli