Tuscan ribollita with bread, cannellini beans and cavolo nero
Ribollita is a Tuscan soup of cavolo nero, cannellini beans and stale bread. Give the bread time to soak up the broth, then reheat the soup gently to give it its characteristic thick texture.
Ingredients for 4
400 g cooked cannellini beans, 300 g cavolo nero, 200 g Savoy cabbage, 200 g stale Tuscan bread, 1 onion, 1 carrot, 1 celery stalk, 1 potato, about 800 ml water or vegetable stock, extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper.
Method
1. Chop the onion, carrot and celery and soften them in two tablespoons of oil. Add the diced potato and sliced cabbage, discarding the toughest cavolo nero stems.
2. Blend half the beans with a ladle of stock. Add this purée and the remaining stock to the pot and simmer for around 40 minutes until the vegetables are tender. Add the rest of the beans for the final ten minutes and season to taste.
3. Layer thin slices of bread with ladles of soup. Let the bread absorb the liquid, then reheat over low heat, stirring gently. If making it for the following day, refrigerate it and reheat before serving. Finish with black pepper and a drizzle of olive oil.
Recipe reference: https://www.visittuscany.com/en/recipes/ribollita/
Photo by Ithunn, Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ribollita_toscana.JPG — CC BY-SA 3.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
