So, we're gonna make a Tuscan bread and bean soup. And the types of beans I like to use for this will
be a cranberry bean, or a small white bean, the navy bean, or a cannellini bean.
Something in the white nature of it. We don't want to use a black bean or a kidney bean, they're little just too rich.
This is a very classic Tuscan Italian soup, making use of the fresh olive oil that comes out in the Fall,
and some of the vegetables like savoy cabbage, and our leeks, and our Swiss chard.
And we finish this soup with the country bread.
So, we make the soup ahead of time,
and then we're ready to serve it, we just take some of the old bread,
put it in the bowl, pour the soup over, and finish with olive oil.
It's very simple and a flavorful way to make a simple dinner.
So, I'm using the white part of the leek.
We'll prep this and then I'll give it a rinse.
We're using an onion, two carrots, and the celery....
And this will be the base of the soup. We'll cook this down for about 10 or 15 minutes in olive oil,
and then we'll be ready for our beans, our cabbage, and our chard.
So, our beans. Let's take a look at our beans. They're cooking right now.
And they've been cooking for about 45 minutes. They're almost done.
What I'm using are....
white beans that have been soaked overnight, cooked them with bay leaf and garlic.
And the liquid here is gonna be saved. And this is gonna be the liquid of the soup.
So, it's gonna really have a nice bean flavor, and it's gonna carry through to the very end.
So, we're gonna give us another 10 minutes. Let's work with our vegetables.
So, in the recipe, I just have them kind of chunked. Basically.....
.....rough chopped. Because I'm gonna put this in a food processor,
and process them until they're just kind of..... chopped up a little bit more.
[chopping sounds]
So, when we cook this down in the pot with olive oil,
we're gonna do it on medium low heat, so we're sweating the vegetables.
So, we're gonna really have nice color of the vegetables in the end.
Okay, so I've rinsed my leeks and getting everything together for the base of the soup.
We have two cloves of garlic, one celery,
two carrots, an onion, and the leek. All this is going to go into a food processor.
And we're just going to pulse it a few times to chop it up. Not too fine.
And this will go right into our pot with our olive oil.
Okay, let's process these.
[blender sounds]
All right, that's what they should look like.
So, we're gonna start our soup with the quarter cup of olive oil.
[sizzling sounds]
And about ten minutes to cook these down.
This is the base of our flavor. This is a.....
Sometimes known as a "mirepoix." We use this in making stocks.
So, cooking this down until we've kind of cooked the sting of the onion and the leek and the garlic off.
And that's kind of our base flavor.
This will take about about ten minutes on medium/medium-low heat to sweat the vegetables.
I like to add a little bit a pinch of salt in the beginning, because this draws out the moisture.
And we'll just let this go.
Let's take a look at our beans.
Bringing these right over here.
I can take a look and see that some of the beans are starting to crack, so this is my sign that they're.....
They're about done.
They are going to get another hour of cooking with all of the ingredients, so they can still be slightly all dente.
Let's strain off these beans, we're going to save the cooking liquid.
Alright, taking a look at our base. We are slightly translucent.
This has been sweating in the olive oil for about 10 minutes.
The next step is to prepare our two other vegetables that are going to be part of this.
Our savoy cabbage, which I like to take off the outer darker leaves.
And then I'm going to cut it, in a term called "Chiffonade." Basically "sliced thinly."
Take the cores off.
[chopping sounds]
Go straight to the pot.
[chopping sounds]
All right, so this is going to cook down a lot. We're gonna want to cook this.....
.....with......the.......
......the par-cooked beans for about an hour. So, I'm adding the beans straight to this pot.
And I'm going to use the bean cooking liquid.
Only about a cup of it.
And then the rest of the liquid will be just water.
I'm going to cut up my chard, and add that, and bring it to a simmer.
So, another Chiffonade of green vegetable, cut thinly.
[chopping sounds]
So, right now, it looks like it's a pot full of vegetables, but this is going to cook down,
and the cabbage and the chard are going to release their moisture,
along with the rest of the vegetables.
So, I'm going to put a lid on this and put it on medium-low heat.
The moisture is going to be released, the flavors are gonna blend,
and the beans are gonna have a chance to continue cooking.
So, we'll come back in an hour, and take a look at it, and finish with our country bread and our olive oil.
Okay, so you can see how this has really reduced. A lot of the moisture has been released. We have a very hearty soup here.
And it smells great, looks great.
Let's present it. Let's have lunch.
So, I'm going to take some day-old country bread, that's just kind of torn.
French bread will work.
Let me season my soup with a little bit of salt and pepper.
A little bit of extra-virgin olive oil.
Splash of black pepper.
And here we go. Our Tuscan bread and bean soup.
Excellent. Enjoy!