We're making a white minestrone.
We're using pearled barley and borlotti beans.
You can use white beans as as well.
You can use canned or from a jar
but it's really a bean and grain soup.
The night before, if I'm going to cook
my own borlotti beans, those are the little pink beans,
little pink dried beans.
You can buy them in cans or jars as I have here as well,
if you wanna speed this whole process up
and I soak them overnight together.
We do this all the time.
I leave water on them overnight.
They bloat up a little bit and they cook even faster.
Now, when you cook the beans, beans are just like potatoes.
They love salt.
So, we wait for the water to come to a boil,
we add salt, I add an onion and a bay leaf.
Simple.
Then we strain them off.
I like to save a little bit of that starchy liquid
to add into the soup pot as well.
It thickens the soup
and I do the exact same thing
with the orzo or pearled barley
and use cup, cup and a half
if you're trying to get a pot of soup
that would feed six people.
So, in the pot to start,
we sweat out a large onion and a bulb of fennel.
I have a little bit of carrot.
They were rainbow carrots
so I have a little yellow, little orange,
equally delicious, couple of bay leaves
and I was in the middle of dealing with the leeks.
Now, we just run our knife through,
little bit of leak and potato
in with a fennel and the onion.
Guys, you bring me out some garlic?
And you gotta throw in some crushed
or grated garlic as well
and we're gonna throw in some rosemary
(audience applauding)
Big Ben with the garlic.
Thank you, Ben.
Anyway, we grate in some garlic.
Stir this guy,
salt and pepper.
Now, potatoes are just like beans.
They love salt.
So, you gotta go like two turns.
Did I hitch you in the eye, honey?
He's used to it.
He'll be fine, he'll be fine, he'll be fine.
I like a little white pepper in white dishes.
The rind is like gold.
I keep these in the freezer and every time
you make a pot of soup or a big pot of sauce,
you throw the rind in and it makes the entire thing
taste like parmigiano reggiano.
(audience applauding)
Then we're gonna throw in a little rosemary.
Okay, we're at a good place with this.
I'm gonna let that cook out just a bit more
and we're working over kind of moderate heat here.
So, now we're going to add our cooked pearled barley
and our canned or freshly cooked beans.
These are borlotti or the pink beans
and now we add as much stock,
I've got two quarts here,
as it takes to just cover all of that
and let it simmer together a few minutes.
Everything's cooked, the beans are cooked,
the barley's cooked, blah, blah.
Now, we're gonna let this come back up to a boil
and then reduce it to simmer.
Just let it thicken up just a bit there at the end.
We're gonna make some bruschetta
but we're not gonna top it with anything.
We're just gonna char the bread,
rub garlic into it and drizzle it with oil
and then hit it with some flaky sea salt.
(audience applauding)
If you have a gas top stove,
you can literally do that,
char the bread directly over an open flame.
If you do not have a gas top stove,
just turn the broiler on
or get a cast iron skillet super hot
and just put the bread flat in it until it's charred.
I just cut up the charred bread.
John was sweet enough to rub it with some split garlic
and drizzle it with olive oil,
sprinkle a little sea salt on it.
Normally we would let it sit out on the counter
on a trivet for a while first.
I would let this set for a few minutes.
You can't eat it scalding hot anyway
and we pull out, can I have the garbage bowl, hun?
Thank you.
We pull out the rind, the cheese rind
and as you come along but don't spend too much time on it,
as you're serving the soup you'll eventually come across
the bay leaves, no biggie, right?
So, we take the fennel, the barley, the beans,
this is such a healthy soup,
this kind of white minestrone.
there's the other bay leaf, grab it.
Thanks, darling.
So, we fill the bowl with this.
There's our charred bread
and we kind of soak it at the edges like this
and when we serve, we put a little cheese,
parmigiano or pecorino and we drizzle it with olive oil.
(audience applauding) Oh, boy.