So it’s not actually a bisque. But I had to name it something. I have been sick lately. Yesterday I was laying around thinking about making some minestrone soup. I looked through my Italian cookbooks and really didn’t find anything that looked easy to make. No good soup is going to be easy, but I needed something less complicated.
Last week we had dinner at Casa de Luca in Beverly. It’s a great neighborhood Italian restaurant with generous portions and reasonable prices. The minestrone soup was to die for as were the fresh garlic bread sticks. I was inspired. I’ve only made a minestrone a few times before. I was never impressed with how they came out. So I figured I’d invent one of my own.
Traditionally, minestrone is a thick Italian soup made with vegetables, often including beans, pasta or rice. I wasn’t in the mood for a bean soup and I was really craving chicken. I went to the store and grabbed a bunch of things that seemed to go well in making an Italian chicken stew. Here’s what happened …
- 2 quarts chicken broth
- 1 quart water
- ¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
- 1 whole rotisserie chicken (I used one that was already cooked at the store)
- 1 medium onion, finely chopped
- 2 carrots, finely chopped
- 2 celery stalks, finely chopped
- 1 shallot, finely chopped
- 4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
- 1 cup Italian green beans (the flat kind), roughly chopped
- 1 large zucchini, roughly chopped
- 1 28oz can crushed tomatoes
- 1 14oz can diced tomatoes
- 2 tablespoons chicken base paste
- 2 tablespoons vegetable base paste
- 1 tablespoon dried Italian seasoning
- 1 teaspoon crushed dried red pepper flakes
- 2oz salt pork, finely diced
- 1½ cup Ditalini pasta
- Fresh Italian flat leaf parsley
Heat a large stock pot over medium heat and add the olive oil. Let the oil heat through and add the diced salt pork. Slowly render the fat and flavor from the salt pork then add the chopped onion. Stir till the onion is well coated with oil. After few minutes add the shallot, chicken and vegetable base pastes, garlic and Italian seasoning. Stir often. After another few minutes add the carrots, celery, Italian green beans and chicken and vegetable base pastes. Stir well and cook for five minutes or so then add the canned crushed and diced tomatoes. Stir and cook for another five minutes then add the water and chicken broth.
Crank the heat up to high and bring to a boil. Once it’s boiling, reduce heat to low, cover and simmer for about half an hour. Carve up the rotisserie chicken. Remove as much meat as you can from the chicken leaving behind any fat and skin. Break up the meat with your hands and add to the stew. Simmer for another half hour or so. Stir often.
I like to get those rotisserie chickens quite often. They don’t cost much more than buying a raw whole chicken. Even if I don’t plan on eating them that day, I carve out the meat and set it aside in case I need to add it to any recipe in the near future. Sometimes I just sit on the couch, watch TV and chow down on crackers, cheese and cold shredded rotisserie chicken meat.
Anyway, add the chopped zucchini and cook for another five to ten minutes. Turn off heat and add the ditalini pasta. Cover and let sit for 20-30 minutes. Serve in wide flat bowls topped with freshly grated Pecorino Romano cheese and chopped fresh Italian parsley. Trust me, you’ll love it.
Mine came out a bit salty, but I like it that way. I used salt at first when I added the chopped onions. Judging by how salty it was, I omitted the salt from this posting. The soup will get plenty of salt from the chicken and vegetable base pastes. That stuff is potent, but I love it. I’ll never go back to dried bouillon again.
Zuppa-dupa!
Yankees suck! Oh, and the Ravens are bunch of cry babies.