Another dish of the Italian poor - minestrone, thick vegetable soup. This soup is made from seasonal vegetables. You can put any vegetables in it that are grown in the garden or kept in the pantry, and be sure to add pasta, potatoes or rice for satiety. It is important to cook the soup long enough for the vegetables to give as much of their aromas and tastes as possible, then it will turn out to be saturated.
I cooked soup on the water, but you can add vegetable broth, and when the fast is over, cook the minestrone on beef or chicken broth. Be sure to extinguish the onions, tomatoes and carrots well, it is this mixture that plays the title role in the vegetable bouquet.
It is also important to grind up about half of the thick ingredients to a puree, and then mix everything together again. The diversity of textures is another distinctive feature of minestrone.
- Cooking time: 1 hour
- Servings: 6
Ingredients for Lean Minestrone
- 3-4 medium potato tubers;
- 2 carrots;
- 2 onions or shallots;
- 4 tomatoes;
- 350 g celery stalks;
- 300 g Chinese cabbage;
- 100 g white rice;
- chili peppers;
- bay leaf, black pepper, olive oil, paprika flakes.
Method of cooking lean minestrone
Finely chop the shallot or onions, carrots cut into cubes or thin straws. Heat olive oil in a saucepan, add chopped vegetables, fry over medium heat, stirring constantly to prevent the onions from burning.
Grate the tomatoes on a large grater, add the tomato puree to the vegetables, simmer for 15 minutes.
It is convenient to rub the tomatoes on a large grater, when the whole vegetable is crushed, the skin will remain in the hands, which you do not need to add to the soup.
When the tomatoes, carrots and onions are ready, add chopped celery stalks and Chinese cabbage. Instead of Chinese cabbage, you can add savoy, but not white cabbage, it will spoil the flavor of the soup.
We clean potato tubers, cut it into cubes, wash white rice well with cold water. Add rice and potatoes to the pan.
Add seasonings. We put several bay leaves, flakes of sweet paprika, chopped finely pods of chili pepper.
Pour 2 liters of boiling water into a saucepan, bring the soup to a boil, add sea salt, a large pinch of sugar to balance the acid of tomatoes, cook for 25-30 minutes on low heat.
When the rice is cooked and the vegetables are soft, you can remove the pan from the heat.
Approximately half of the thicker ingredients of the soup are picked up and separately ground by an immersion blender.
We mix the remaining soup with chopped products - we get a minestrone, a soup with a very diverse texture, in which there is a delicate, creamy soup-puree, and pieces of vegetables, and razvaryty rice.
Pour the prepared soup into plates, pepper it with freshly ground pepper, add a little fresh chili pepper and greens. Serve hot.
I advise you to spice up the lean minestrone soup with soy sour cream or sprinkle with the first cold pressed olive oil and sprinkle with fried croutons from the fast bread.
Enjoy your meal!
