Bread Soup, Ribollita

It’s almost impossible to give a recipe for Tuscan bread soup because each family has their own version, refined over years and based on their own tastes. In reality, there isn’t one recipe that could be said to be the ‘correct’ recipe, we can only suggest what we think is one of the best ways to make this delicious Tuscan staple.

Ingredients:
100g extra virgin olive oil
1 onion
1 or 2 cloves of garlic
150g carrots
150g chopped celery
 300g potatoes
a quarter of a Verza cabbage (white cabbage)
2 bunches of kale (‘cavolo nero’)
a bunch of beet stalks
600g cannellini beans (already cooked)
some tomato conserve
sliced bread
salt and pepper

Chop the onion and the garlic and fry lightly in a large sauce pan. Add the tomato conserve diluted in a cup of warm water, the carrots, celery, the peeled and chopped potatoes. Stir to allow the flavours to come out. Purée two thirds of the pre-cooked beans and add along with the water used to cook the beans.
Chop the cabbage (the Verza and kale) and the beet stalks into thin strips, season and cook in the covered pan for approximately one hour, adding water if the soup should become too dense. Then add the remaining beans and cook for another 10 minutes.
In a soup server, put a layer of bread and cover with a layer of soup. Keep adding layers of bread and soup till the soup server is full.
It’s usually best to make a large quantity of this soup as it is famous for being even tastier ‘ribollita’ or ‘re-boiled’ the next day, especially (according to some) if eaten with lightly salted slices of onion.

(Article by APT di Prato)