We're going to make a ribollita.
The building blocks are any vegetables you'd like to use.
Always, always the basics for soup, right?
Carrot, celery, onion.
We're also adding, today, some fennel and some parsnip.
As you can see, this is the perfect
use of our entire counter.
I had a bit of cabbage left from the other day,
so I chopped that.
I had escarole left from...
Oh my gosh, when was that job?
Like a week ago?
I had some chard left from the garden.
So it's a use up of all different greens
any dark greens you like.
We're cooking out the tougher vegetables first
with any herbs you like.
I happen to have, in the fridge, sage, thyme, and rosemary,
so I made a bundle out of that.
We need two quarts plus an extra couple of cups of liquid
to reconstitute porcinis.
So you cover them with stock or water,
and we're going to let them reconstitute
while we're cooking our soup.
For the soup, get the biggest pot you got, man.
We're gonna start that pot with a little bit
of pork pancetta.
You can omit this,
and it's a delicious vegetarian dish.
It'll still be lovely.
If you use something like chard, which I have here,
take the stems and chop them.
And you're going to cook the chopped stems
with all of these tougher root vegetables here.
So I'm gonna tear some bread and get that into the oven.
To our big soup pot, we are adding our herb bundle,
all of our carrots, celery, onion, parsnip, fennel,
and, of course, because it's for me and John and our family,
these leafy tops of the chard and the escarole.
This can wait and get wilted in later, okay?
The cabbage can go in now.
(vegetables simmering)
And I'm gonna add salt.
(vegetables simmering)
And our big hunk of parm rind, right?
And now for pepper, you can put in black pepper,
red pepper, or both.
Now we're gonna let this sweat.
So I'm gonna put the lid kind of askew like this.
We can now add a couple of quarts
of chicken and vegetable stock.
(liquid pouring)
And let that come up to a boil
before you start wilting in your greens, okay?
We can add our tomato if you're using it.
These are semi dried.
(bowl clanking)
And I started with two cups of dry beans,
and I cooked those out separately.
Or you can use two cans of beans from your pantry.
(bowl clanking)
Now we're gonna let this come up to a boil
and cook out a bit,
and then we're gonna wilt in those greens.
I did not burn the bread.
I added most of the greens.
Just wanted to show you you just wilt them in
in little bunches like this.
Took out the porcinis,
so that we could cool them enough to chop them.
Now, I'm gonna add the fortified stock
to our big pot of soup.
Now for the porcini, they're already sliced, of course,
when you buy them in the package.
So I just run my knife through them once or twice,
and that's good enough.
And, of course, we're gonna grate in our nutmeg
to highlight our dark greens.
(nutmeg grating)
If you're feeding a group,
you would add the bread to the soup pot
and just put the soup pot, literally,
in the middle of the table.
For me, I'm going to serve this soup over a few days
to a bunch of different people.
So what we're going to do...
(silence)
Is take some of our bread,
put it in the bowl, our toasted stale bread.
Okay, that'll make an extra nutty,
and we're going to pour the beans and vegetables
porcini stock broth over the top and let it sit there.
When we bring ribollita to the table,
we put on a little cheese and leave the cheese on the table.
People want more as they go.
Some white raw onion.
(silence)
And a nice drizzle of really good fancy fruity E-V-O-O.
(bright chimes)
(silence)