CLASSIC MINESTRONE
Makes 8 medium bowls — Lucia Rosella
ingredients
160g dried kidney beans well covered with water and soaked overnight
300g red onions peeled and diced
300g carrot peeled and sliced
100g celery sliced
2 tablespoons Lucia’s Own Extra Virgin Olive Oil
5g salt
freshly ground black pepper
2 hot or mild dried Italian sausages (Coteccini) skinned and sliced
500g prosciutto ends
2 bay leaves
small bunch of fresh herbs tied up with kitchen string
750ml Lucia’s Own Napolitana Sauce
4L water
250g cherry tomatoes blanched and skinned
300g medium zucchini washed and sliced
160g tube pasta cooked al dente in boiling salted water with a little oil
125g Lucia’s Own Pesto
75g parmesan freshly and finely grated
few basil leaves
method
Sauté the onion, carrot and celery with the salt and pepper until they are caramelised. Add the sausage and cook for a few minutes before adding the prosciutto ends, herbs, water and tomato sauce. Rinse the kidney beans several times under cold running water and add them to the soup. Cook simmering very gently until the beans are just tender 60 - 90 minutes. Remove the prosciutto ends and herb string and any floating herb stems from the soup. Skin the prosciutto, slice the meat and return it to the soup.
Just before serving add the tomatoes and zucchini and cook until the zucchini is just tender but still bright green about 2 minutes. Taste and adjust the seasonings, taking into account that the pesto and parmesan can be salty.
Add the pasta and serve garnished with the parmesan, pesto and basil leaves.
It is very difficult to give an exact time for cooking dried beans. The older they are the longer they take to cook. Soaking overnight helps enormously, but one still has to use common sense.
Prosciutto ends can be bought from any Italian butcher and will keep almost indefinitely in the fridge. They can be quite salty and vary enormously so initial salting is light and adjusted when the soup is finished.
Traditionally the pasta is cooked in the soup, but unless you are going to eat the soup in one sitting we find cooking the pasta separately and adding it to each serve/s as we use the minestrone as it means the pasta never goes mushie.
available from Lucia’s Fine Foods
Lucia’s Own Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Lucia’s Own Napolitana Sauce, Lucia’s Own Pesto
