Best Minestrone?

The flavor that I couldn't pin down up until only a few years ago was the rind of parmesan that gets tossed in and fished out when it's done...could this be it?

Andy

I was just going to suggest the same thing, Andy.

I made minestone on Sunday, and here is the recipe I use:

Minestrone Soup

2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup minced white onion (about 1/2 small onion)
1/3 cup minced celery (about 1 stalk)
2 chopped zucchinis, chopped
2 teaspoons minced garlic (about 2-3 cloves)
2 cups water or vegetable broth
1 Tbsp vegetable soup base (if broth is not used - dissolve in the 2 cups water)
1 (14 ounce) can diced tomatoes
1/4 cup carrots, shredded
2-4 tablespoons minced fresh parsley
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon dried basil
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1 to 1 1/2 cups water or vegetable soup base
1 to 1-1/2 tsp vegetable soup base (dissolved in the water, if broth not used)
2/3 cup small shell pasta, farfalle, or orzo
1-3/4 cups cooked red kidney beans, drained*
1-3/4 cups cooked small white beans or great northern beans, drained*
2 cups fresh baby spinach (optional)
2 tbsp tomato paste or 1 tbsp tomato powder
salt, to taste, if soup base is not used

Heat the olive oil over medium heat in a large soup pot.

Sauté onion and celery in the oil for 4-5 minutes or until onions begin to turn translucent. Add the zucchini and garlic and sauté a couple of minutes more.

Add vegetable broth to pot, plus tomatoes, carrot, and spices. Bring soup to a boil, then reduce heat and allow to simmer for 20 minutes.

Add additional 1 cup hot water/vegetable broth (more, if needed), pasta, beans, spinach leaves (if desired), and tomato paste, and cook for an additional 20 minutes or until desired consistency. Less water will be needed if the spinach is used. Add salt to taste, if you are not using soup base. I use Better Than Bouillon brand vegetable soup base or one that I get from a restaurant supply store. Use more parsley if you are not adding spinach.
*Note: I use 7/8 cup of each dried bean to yield the amount needed and cook the beans in a pressure cooker with a couple of bay leaves and a Habanero chili. Alternatively, canned beans can be used (14 oz can each), drained and rinsed.
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I did not have zucchini, and so I increased the amount of celery to three ribs, and I did not have parsley, and so I used celery leaves instead. I did have spinach, however, and I used Habanero instead of black pepper. I cooked the beans in a pressure cooker with three Bay leaves and a Habanero chili (without seeds) cut in half, and I discarded the leaves and the chili, although I kept the cooking water. Surprisingly, the cooking water was not hot from the chili. I probably should not have discarded the chili. Instead of vegetable soup base and tomato paste, I used powdered tomato soup base, and added the amount I needed to get the salt flavor I wanted.

Lars

I am a huge minestrone fan, I make it all the time but don't use a recipe, I just use up whatever veggies, beans and starches I have around that need to be used up. The best tips I have for the really good taste are to use a small can of V-8 juice (I do that for chili too), and a shot of red wine.

Minestrone really has no recipe, it is more a clean out the fridge type soup. A little bit of marinara or bolagnese, some vegetables, some beans out of a can, leftover pasta, a good grate of Parmesan or the rind if you have it and some beef or chicken stock and you have soup.

I wing it as well. Using what i have on hand. Though some things are always the same...standard twists.
I use more celery than most. A leek if i have it, even a bit of fennel, (i have some now). In the first saute of onion, celery, etc, i add a small diced potato and/or a third of a sweet potato.
I have a ti-bit drawer in my kitchen freezer that has 'smalls'.
Cheese rinds, small cubes of slab bacon, thick hard salami slices, bits of prosciutto,,,fresh herbs. Butter, rennet for cheese making, etc
When initially starting the sauce of veg, i'll add a small bit of diced meat or bacon...no more than the size of an ice cube.
Always a parm cheese rind bit after the broth comes up to a simmer.
Homemade rich stock, even if i make a vegetarian version does make a difference. I don't like mine very tomatoey. I freeze cherry toms from the summer harvest whole and grab and quarter a dozen of those...when i run out around feb-march i buy a grocery clam shell pack a toss the whole thing in the freezer.
If in the end my broth needs a punch, i add a tbsp squirt of shiracha.
Whenever i make stock, now lots from the Thanksgiving ducks, i make a pot of white beans. Freeze some pints of beans topped with stock. A quick addition to any soup or chowder. (most of the stock without beans)

Seems to be a personal choice, a family favorite combination of flavors...last go at it i diced a small link of lamb sausage that i sautéed early on. Added a frozen pint of chickpeas, frozen in a smoked chicken broth.

My fall veggie stock turned out a bit bla, so i caramelized some onions and mushrooms to add when i use it.

Always a chunk of cheese rind....that may be what is missing as mentioned above.

I don't follow an exact recipe for most soups, including Minestrone. i prefer a beef based Minestrone. Finished with a dollop of homemade pesto.

Here is my basic outline.

Home Cookin Chapter: Recipes From Thibeault's Table

Minestrone Soup
===============
Very Rich Beef Broth, preferrably homemade, but canned will work

olive oil
garlic
onions
celery
carrots
green beans
spinach
zucchini
canned tomatoes
parlsey
basil
oregano
Chick Peas
Kidney Beans
small pasta
Homemade pesto
Parmesan Cheese

(optional)
Simmer some beef in the broth to add to the soup.

I like to add some broccoli and cauliflower to my minnestrone soup
as well.

Make Beef broth or use canned

saute onions, celery, carrots in olive oil, add garlic and add
beef broth and canned tomatoes and parsley. Season with basil and
salt and pepper. Simmer for 30 minutes and then add green beans,
zucchini and simmer for another 20 minutes.( if using broccoli or
cauliflower add now as well) Add kidney beans and chickpeas and
spinach.

Cook the pasta separately.

To serve laddle soup into bowls, add some of the cooked pasta and
a dollop of pesto and sprinkle with fresh parmesan cheese.

I agree with Ann - Here they have pistou which is the Provencal version of pesto which is added at the end just as you serve and stir it in. Delicious fresh flavour.

Thank-you all so much for sharing!

I've done the parm rinds, so it's not the missing element, but I do thank you for the reminder because I'd forgotten to get more after I cleared out the last ones.

Lars, I think the soup base might be the answer to the saltiness I was looking for. Italian mamas notoriously use bouillon cubes. :) I have some of each. I'll give it a try.

Usually, I make it similarly to the rest of you, variety based on what's at hand. I've really loved reading through your variations. I read a Lidia recipe that called for Savoy cabbage and chard! I don't remember seeing cabbage in the ones with the flavor I'm looking for, but it kind of dissolves. I'm wondering if that's it!

So I'm going to pick up parm rinds and cabbage and make a wet vegetable soup with some soup base. If I'm lucky, it'll taste like good minestrone. :)

IIRC, like lpink, Cook's Illustrated also advocated using V8 juice in minestrone. As is their custom, they went through a jillion permutations and came to the conclusion that it needed some V8 [insert head slap here]

It's bouillon cubes. I think Ma used half but I can't find her recipe.

I don't try to teach Americans Italian recipes anymore because they all know better. But you asked nicely. ;-)

Thanks, Marcolo!

Mine don't have the MSG, so I'll hope that it's sufficient. The best ever minestrone was at this little Italian bistro where the owner made his mama's recipe every day. Sigh. I don't expect to achieve that. :)

LPink, you win the prize!

I did the (no MSG) bouillon. I bought a block of parm but forgot to put in the rind. They didn't have a Savoy (odd-they had plenty a few days back, and it's a Winter vegetable) so I just got a regular cabbage, and I couldn't find the spinach in my overstuffed fridge, so I used baby kale. In the end, it was more like stone soup than minestrone. No beans or pasta. It all tasted great, but there was that IT missing.

The missing flavor was the red wine. Maybe a little bit the cabbage. I think it helps. But as soon as I put in the end of a fairly good cabernet sauvignon, I could taste that IT factor. Ordinarily, I would have used a white or maybe madeira. I had another end of white zinfandel, which did nothing for it. :) The weight of the cab did it. It needed more (big pot), so I used a blend that isn't as complex as a cab, but equally rich and heavy. Not as IT as the cab, but hearty enough to work. And it was open. I'm not opening a pricy bottle of wine for the soup. :) I more often have granachas open, and they're cousins to barolos, so I will make sure in the future to save their ends for the minestrone.

Thank-you, everyone for the help!

"Minestrone really has no recipe, it is more a clean out the fridge type soup. "

My mother used to call this Moscow Soup.
Open the refrigerator and look around. This moscow, that
moscow, gather it all together and make a soup out of it.

I don't drink cabernet but I keep a bottle in the fridge for cooking purposes. It is great with tomato based sauces and also on roasted vegetables and meats. Just a bit though, as I have found that if you splash it in too liberally then the flavor dominates too much. I can actually get half bottles at the wine store at the farm market!

This post was edited by lpinkmountain on Thu, Dec 25, 14 at 9:42

If you want to use vegetable bouillon cubes, I like Telma brand from Israel. I find them at Ralphs, and they also make mushroom cubes, but the vegetable ones are especially good. After you dissolve them in hot water, you will see little bits of vegetables.

I used Knorr Caldo de Tomate, but it mixes tomato with chicken, although it is mostly tomato. Normally I make vegetarian Minestrone. I might try adding a bit of red wine, when I have some.

Lars

When I went to Italy on my honeymoon, as a thank you for much hospitality enjoyed I made my two Italian sisters-in-law a pot of minestrone. It was ready and then I started to worry about having had the impudence to make minestrone for two Italian housewives. My sister-in-law leaned over and whispered to me, "Don't worry: I tasted it and it's GOOD".

So I make mine a little differently from the various recipes described here. I start out making a pot of beans in broth, the beans seasoned with bay leaves, fresh sage, and garlic. After we've eaten beans for a day or two, the remaining broth and beans go into minestrone. For me, too, minestrone is more of a process than a recipe; I use what's available that time of year, but everything fresh, and with lots of vegetables. I get a big pot, put olive oil in the bottom, and begin cutting up vegetables and sauteing them. I always have onions and carrots. Others I commonly use include garlic, celery, turnips, potatoes, zucchini, green beens, cabbage, radicchio, tomatoes, dried mushrooms (these I prefer to use the crumbled pieces, soak them and just add the soaking water). I'd love to try parsnips, and scorzanera (black parsnips) are marvelous if you can find them. When the vegetables have all been sauted, add the beans and broth, tomatoes and mushroom soaking water if you're using them, more water, salt. Tomatoes are fresh in the summer, blanched, peeled, and chopped; I'll use bottled tomatoes or puree in winter, as the Italian kind are quite good. There should be fresh herbs (good dried is also okay) in moderation: parsley or thyme or sage or basil; always a couple of bay leaves; rosemary in the winter. I don't use stock or cubes, or wine, and my minestrone is vegetarian and doesn't have the rind of Parmesan, though I think rind or meat could help make a good minestrone. But abundant fresh vegetables are the heart and soul of the dish.
For the pasta, I make the pot of soup, then ladle out as much as is going to be eaten at that meal into a smaller pot and cook the pasta in that soup. Cooked and reheated pasta in minestrone is nasty. You can also use rice or just put bread in it. We generally add Parmesan to our portions once they're in our bowls, not while the soup is cooking.

P.S. I think I should talk quantities. Were I to make minestrone tomorrow, the ingredients would be roughly as follows:
enough olive oil to cover the bottom of a 6 qt. pot
1 lg. onion
2-3 stalks of celery
1-2 turnips
3-4 carrots, more if small
a small head of radicchio
1-2 med. potatoes
1/2-1 cup tomato puree
soaking water from ca. 1/4 cup porcini mushroom fragments
1-1 1/2 qts. beans and broth
2 bay leaves
about 1 tsp. fresh rosemary
salt
short pasta; I like mezze penne or fusilli

This post was edited by melissa_thefarm on Sun, Dec 28, 14 at 4:07