﻿'Ello you lot, this is Keef Cooks, I'm Keef,
and today I'm going to do a fantastic Italian classic dish
- Minestrone Soup.
[ MUSIC ]
But first of all, birthday greetings to Belly Batrimons over in Bangkok,
I'm sure that well, I know that's not your real name, but have a good birthday
or I hope you've had a good birthday. I don't know exactly when it is.
Minestrone soup. This was requested about six months ago by JanTheNan,
and I was pretty sure I'd done that already.
And I may have done because there is a recipe on my website, keefcooks.com
Minestrone Soup is a classic of Italian cuisine. However,
there's no fixed recipe, so I won't be getting any complaints about authenticity. Thank you.
But there are a few standard items. So it's based on the Italian holy trinity of onions, celery and
carrots. It's a tomato based liquid. There will be whatever seasonal vegetables you can get.
There may or may not be meat like pancetta or bacon or something.
And also that could be a pasta, little small bits of pasta or rice.
But, you know, all of those in combination, even from one one cook from one day to another,
will make it differently because of the availability of different ingredients. So if
you enjoy this video, press like also subscribe, ring the bell, make a donation to become
a patron. Why not? I know why not. But if you feel inclined so. Right, I'm wittering.
Let's get on with it. Minestrone soup, my ingredients. I've got a medium onion,
a wonky carrot and a couple of sticks of celery. I've also got a couple cloves of garlic, a can of
tomatoes and some seasonal veg. I just happen to have some some cabbage, isn't it pretty. But things like
squash is good or zucchini. What do we call them. Courgette. Peas. I will put some frozen peas in
what you got really. Two hundred and thirty grams of cannellini beans that's drained.
Wait you could use borlotti beans or any other kind of bean or garbanzos
if you wish. I also have a squirt of passata. I've got some bacon. You could use pancetta
and some chicken stock. Now I probably need to top that up with water,
some Grana Padano cheese, which I'll grate on top at the end, but also cut the rind off
the stick that in with the soup towards the end, give it a load of umami.
A small handful of basil, salt, ground black pepper as required, some oregano and my pasta I'm using
orzo. It's like rice, although in Italian it means barley because it kind of looks a little bit like
barley. And then to garnish we'll just have a dollop of pesto. Now, like many Italian dishes,
soups, things like ragu and stuff like that. We start with the Italian Holy Trinity,
which is called Soffrito, and it is onion, a carrot and celery chopped quite small.
That's the same ingredients as the French Mirepoix except mirepoix is slowly kind of sweated
in butter or oil for maybe 15, 20 minutes, and they don't want it to brown. But with soffrito,
you do want it to brown and you cook it quite quickly, only about five minutes.
And then the Spanish sofrito, which is one F and completely different ingredients. OK, magic knife.
Chop the celery.
[ CHOPPY NOISES ]
OK, it's choppy, choppy, squashy squashy the garlic cloves.
Or you can mince them, if you want. Now normally I'd cook this in a big, tall pot, but just so you
can see what's going on. I'm starting off in a shallow frying pan. So good glug of olive
oil on medium heat and just chuck a bit of onion in there to indicate when it starts to sizzle.
And when it is sizzling add the onion, celery
and the carrot and the garlic, and we'll cook those for about five minutes.
And then if you are adding any meat, add that and get that browned.
So we add the can of tomatoes and the wibbly wobbly homemade chicken stock. If you haven't got
wibbly wobbly stock you can use ordinary runny from a cube stock or just water and also add the passata.
And the chopped basil leaves and a teaspoon of oregano, and we let those simmer gently
for about 40 minutes and then fiddle with it. Now, the last few bits for today,
I'm going to add the cabbage couple tablespoons of frozen peas and the cannellini beans.
Obviously, that well might not be obvious. These are cooked. If you've got dried ones,
you need to deal with those somewhat differently. So those all need to cook for about 20 minutes.
And then I'll switch it off and leave it till tomorrow and I'll finish it off by adding
the cheese rind and the orzo pasta and also season it with salt and pepper if it needs it.
[ ROOSTER CROWING ]
OK so it's the next day and I'm going to finish off the minestrone.
I mentioned I was going to add the rind of the cheese to the soup. It's pretty hard to
eat but it's packed with umami, which is our favourite thing: Ooh Marm Eeee!
I'm heating up the soup and I'll just pop this is in.
And also I've got a pan of salted water coming to the boil because I'm going to add the pasta.
Now,if you've made a quantity of soup and you know you're going to consume it all straight away,
you can just pop that into the soup and cook it for
whatever the recommended time is - this needs between 7 and 9 mintues.
But if you know you're going to be eating it in batches then it's best to
cook the pasta separately,
so I'll just do that in the boiling water. And then add a tablespoon
per person, per serving as and when required.
It's already cooked so it just
heats up as you heat up the soup and it doesn't get overcooked and mushy and nasty.
So here's the soup and I'm just going to transfer
some of it to a smaller saucepan 'cos that's what we're going to have for lunch.
And two tablespoons of pasta.
And when that's cooled down that goes in the fridge for another day.
And now, it's time for the testing of the taste Time. Taste Test Time with Mrs KeefCooks
[ CHEERING ]
Looking very regally purply
This is much nicer than regal purple
Yeah what's this actually called?
Purple
No. Not called amethyst
It's close to magenta
I knew a guy who was a bit dyslexic who always called it magneeta.
So you serve it with a dollop of pesto
[ DOORKNOCKER ]
Ooh, Amazon!
Back in a minute
And a sprinkling of...
cheese. Grana Padano, Parmiggiano, Pecorino, whatever you got ah.
Not really - hard Italian cheese, that's what you need.
OK, come on!
I'm coming
What is it?
I was right!
Is it for me?
No it's for me. Well actually it's for us.
And a tomato
Oh yes. Presentation. You're so sophisticated.
Umm. Minestrone. I don't like minestrone. I like Italian food very very much
I like it
But vegetables floating in a clear liquid - what is that?
And this doesn't look like any minestrone I've ever had.
You said I'd like it!
Oh it's got meat in it!
Er yeah, bacon...pancetta!
That's not rice is it?
Is that those little pasta things?
Orzo. Little bits of pasta that look like rice.
Except the Italians think they look like barley
Ooh and you've made bread. Keef makes fantastic sourdough. You should try it!
Mmm, buttered both sides is it!
I'm a convert
Did he mention this is my lunch break?
OK, I think we're done. We like that a lot. So, thank you for watching
[ SINGING ] Oomarmi, oohooh
[ SINGING ] You're swarmy
We doing aeroplanes
Thank you for watching. See you next week.
[ MUSIC ]