Summer Minestrone
If I’ve made a roast chicken on the Sunday, a minestrone using the stock is my favourite thing for a nourishing Monday night dinner. Minestrone is more of concept than an exact recipe. You really can chuck anything in there. The only real rule is the base: the soffritto (in Italian) - an aromatic mix of diced onions, carrots, and celery gently cooked in olive oil.
INGREDIENTS:
-1 onion
-2 carrots
-2 sticks celery
-3 tbsp olive oil, plus extra of your finest evoo to serve
-Seasonal vegetables of your choice – for example, I used baby courgettes, rainbow chard, green beans, tenderstem broccoli, a chilli
-6-8 new potatoes
-2 garlic cloves
-1½ litres chicken or vegetable stock
-Grated parmesan, plus a few basil leaves, to serve
METHOD:
- Peel and finely chop the onion, carrots and celery into roughly 1cm dice.
- Heat the oil in a large saucepan over a low heat and cook them until soft but not coloured.
- Peel and crush the garlic and add it to the pan.
- Chop and stir in the vegetables in the order in which they’ll take to cook, leaving out any leafy greens for now. Fry until slightly softened, remembering that they’ll be simmered in stock later on, so at this stage don’t need to be cooked right through.
- Pour in the stock, and bring to a boil. Turn down the heat and simmer gently, stirring occasionally to stop it sticking to the pan, until the potatoes are cooked. Add the leafy greens a few mins before the end.
- Turn off the heat. Stir through a load of grated parmesan and then season the broth to taste. Divide the soup between bowls and top each portion with a generous drizzle of olive oil, a good grating of hard cheese and some torn basil leaves!