Ribollita

Do you fancy cosplaying as a servant to a feudal lord in Medieval Italy? Then do we have the perfect dish for you! Originating in the Middle Ages, it’s thought that the food-soaked bread of the Lords was stolen from their trenchers by the servants and turned into a soup called Ribollita (literally, reboiled). Luckily, this Italian classic nowadays uses first-hand bread. We followed the recipe from The Mediterranean Dish

Prep time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 40 minutes
Makes: 2-3 portions

Ingredients
1 loaf ciabatta bread (this is a very unspecific amount we know.. it basically depends how much bread you want in your final soup)
1 red onion
1 stalk celery
2 carrots
3 garlic cloves
1 tin of chopped tomatoes (400g)
125ml white wine
500ml vegetable broth
1 tin of cannellini beans (400g)
A couple centimetres of parmesan rind
1 thyme sprig
1 bay leaf
1/2tsp dried oregano
1/4tsp chilli flakes
250g kale (or spinach if you can’t get your hands on any)
Parmesan for topping

1. Bready or not, here I come…

Preheat your oven to 200°C, release your inner beast and tear your bread into chunks. Luckily my office had some extra pre-cut baguette from an event so I (blasphemously to the Italians probably) used that. Drizzle with olive oil and toss to coat. Bake for ten(ish) minutes until golden and cispy

2. Ribol my Lita

Dice your 1 red onion, 1 stalk celery and 2 carrots into small pieces. Heat 1.5tbsp of olive oil in a saucepan and add the chopped vegetables in. Cook, taking these batutto to soffritto stirring until they have softened

Once they’ve had 10-15 minutes and are nicely softened, crush in 3 cloves of garlic and cook stirring for a couple of minutes until the garlic is fragrant

Add in the tin of chopped tomatoes, 125ml white wine and 500ml vegetable broth. Cook for five minutes breaking up the tomatoes with your spoon (preferably one that doesn’t have a hole in it fur maximum breaking capacity..)

Drain your tin of beans add 1/2 cup of them with 60ml of the tomato sauce into your peg-leg holder. Blend this mixture together until you have a thick paste.

Add the parmesan rind (omit if you are making this recipe vegan) , 1 thyme sprig, 1 bay leaf, 1/2tsp dried oregano and 1/4tsp chilli flakes to the tomato sauce. Give it a quick stir and leave it to bubble bubble toil and trouble for twenty minutes

After 20 minutes have elapsed, add in the rest of your un-pureed beans and pureed bean mixture along with the 250g of fresh kale or spinach. The eagle-eyed among you will notice there is already spinach in this pan, that’s because we only had frozen. If this is the case, just pop the frozen spinach in after 15 minutes of cooking rather than 20 so it has time to defrost. Leave this beany broth to cook for another 10 minutes

Add half of your pre-toasted bread and stir through the sauce. Leave this to cook for a couple of minutes until the bread has softened, but not too long or the bread (especially if you only have a flimsy baguette and not a robust ciabatta) will dissolve.

Decant into bowls, add the rest of your crispy crouton bread pieces with a drizzle of olive oil and a grating of parmesan overtop (obviously omitting the parmesan once again if you’d like it to be vegan)

Dink and sink!

Food for Thought