Ciao a tutti, If you ever choose to go to Tuscany then you should try the Ribollita as it is one of the most famous traditional dishes from this wonderful region of Northern Italy. If you book a cookery course in Tuscany then ask to be shown how to do it!
Ribollita
Ribollita means reboiled. Traditionally, ribollita is a bread-thickened vegetable soup. This recipe comes from a restaurant in Florence, the Giannino in Florence. It’s an hearty tuscan soup. Eat it with crusty bread. There are many variations, try the one that seems the most appealing to you.
Servings: 8
INGREDIENTS
1 cup cannellini beans, uncooked
1 large red onion, sliced
2 carrots, diced
1 celery stalk, diced
4 potatoes, diced
10 zucchini, diced
1 1/2 cups swiss chard, shredded
1 leek
1 savoy cabbage, shredded
1 bunch kale, shredded
salt and pepper
2-3 tablespoons tomato paste
2 days old stale Tuscan white bread
Soak the beans overnight and then cook over low heat. It will take approximately 1 to 1 1/2 hours for them to cook.
In a pan, gently fry the onion. Add the other vegetables, with the exception of the cabbage, kale and beans which are added at a later point. When the vegetables have sweated out their juice, cover with hot water and then add all the cabbage and kale. Cover and simmer for an hour over medium heat.
Add the cooked beans (some of them whole and some puréed), salt and pepper. Leave to simmer for another 20 minutes, stirring frequently because the beans tend to stick to the bottom of the pan. Add the tomato paste.
Slice the stale bread and, in an earthenware casserole, alternate layers of bread with the soup until the bread is soaked. Let rest for one day.
To serve, remove the desired quantity from the casserole and reheat it, or “re-boil” it, as the name in Italian suggests.
Buon appetito!