Soups are an integral part of our diet. Someone is indifferent to them, others do not like, and still others cannot imagine lunch without them. But it’s impossible not to love Italian soups. Their recipes are innumerable, each family prepares in its own way, each village follows centuries-old traditions and considers only its own version to be genuinely true and correct. Let's get acquainted with the masterpieces of Italian gastronomy, which are often simple in ingredient composition and preparation.
Italian soups
Of all the abundance and variety, one can still highlight some of the most popular Italian cuisine soups.
- Ribollite soup. The pleasant and melodic name is translated very usually and prosaically - “overcooked” or “double-cooked”. From time immemorial, the recipe was formed not in refined aristocratic cuisines, but in the families of ordinary poor people, when it was necessary to feed a large family with minimal cost.
- Minestrone is perhaps the most famous Italian soup with pasta or rice. Its time comes when the vegetables of a new crop ripen. In each family, it is cooked in its own way; there is no single option. Minestrone is literally translated from Italian as "big soup" and is characterized by a large number of different vegetables.
- Pappa al Pomodoro - a name that speaks for itself. It’s immediately clear that the main violin in it is tomatoes. This Italian soup comes from sunny Tuscany.
- Brodetto is a gourmet and at the same time simple seafood and fish soup . The dish comes from the Italian port city of Ancona, the capital of the Marche region. The proximity of the sea and the abundance of its gifts gave the world one of the culinary masterpieces. If in France it’s bouillabaisse, then in Italy it’s an Anconian brodetto.
- Kachukko. This Italian soup is also prepared with seafood, abundantly flavored with chili pepper.
Ribollita: peasant soup recipe
In reality, everything elementary is simple. Italian Ribollita soup is prepared from what was previously available to the poor, and now from what is in the refrigerator. But the main thing remains unchanged - the complete absence of meat (beans replace it), Tuscan unsalted bread and two types of cabbage: black and savoy. Without these ingredients, this ribolitta will not work. Vegetables also use carrots, zucchini, potatoes, onions, beet leaves, tomatoes and tomato paste, celery, parsley. Boil the beans, cut all the vegetables: cabbage - into strips, and the rest into cubes. In a large saucepan, heat olive oil and cook vegetables on it, following the order. First onions, then carrots, celery, parsley, tomatoes, cabbage. As a broth, add the water left over from the beans and a little boiled. Adding the ingredients one at a time, it is necessary to simmer each time for 2-3 minutes. Beans are divided into three parts, two wipe until the consistency of mashed potatoes. Add it to Ribolitta and cook the soup on low heat for another 1-1.5 hours, not forgetting to mix. Twenty minutes before ready, put the whole bean. Serve the soup in a large dish where slices of bread and ribollite are laid out in layers.
Italian tomato soup
When the tomato season begins, in Tuscany the time for soup pappa al pomodoro begins. Tomatoes grow and ripen in our country, so why not treat yourself and your loved ones with this thick and fragrant summer soup. You can long and hard to say that canned tomatoes and dried herbs are suitable. Yes, this option has the right to exist, but the fact that it will be close to the original is doubtful. Therefore, in order to cook Italian tomato soup, wait for the tomato season, buy or collect the largest, meaty and ripe vegetables from your own garden, and then get down to business. Take the following recipe as a basis.
For soup you will need:
- 1 kg of ripe tomatoes;
- 1 large onion;
- 500 ml of broth (chicken, vegetable);
- large onion;
- 2 cloves of garlic;
- 200 g of white stale bread;
- olive oil;
- salt, pepper to taste;
- chili pepper (small);
- basil.
The cooking process begins with the processing of tomatoes. They must be incised crosswise and dipped in boiling water for 2-3 minutes, after which the peel can be easily removed. Seeds must be removed, and the pulp cut into cubes. Next, crumble the onions, garlic, basil and hot chili pepper. Heat olive oil in a pan. Fry the onion first (3 minutes), then add the tomatoes (another 4 minutes), garlic and basil. Stew all the vegetables for about 25 minutes. At this time, prepare the bread. Remove the crust from it, and cut the flesh into small cubes. Add the bread and broth to the tomatoes and simmer over low heat for about 5 minutes, until cooked. Before serving, sprinkle pappa al pomodoro with olive oil and season with black pepper.
Italian soup with fine pasta - minestrone
According to the famous chef Jamie Oliver, who also wrote a cookbook about Italy, there are as many types of minestrone as there are villages in this wonderful country. And each will convince you of the truth and impeccable taste of its own minestrone. “Big soup” is practically a philosophy. But there are a few key points common to all recipes. Firstly, minestrone is a soup exclusively with seasonal vegetables. D. Oliver writes in his book that if you cook it with those you cannot find in the market and feed the Italians, then at best they will simply laugh. Secondly, this Italian soup is cooked in water or vegetable broth, and much less often - in meat. In the first case, a light dish is obtained, and in the second, a hearty one. And thirdly, the subtlety lies in the preliminary heat treatment of some vegetables - soffritto, that is, roasting (onions, garlic, carrots, celery and fennel) over low heat.
Minestrone: recipe
Everything is clear with vegetables: each housewife selects what they love in the family. The main thing is that there should be a lot of them so that the soup is thick. Use onions (onions or leeks), carrots, potatoes, zucchini, pumpkin, bell peppers, cabbage, tomatoes, celery, fennel. Necessarily, well, or preferably, the presence of legumes (beans, peas, or beans). An approximate list of ingredients for soup (replace one with another or exclude, but remember that in this minestrone there should be at least 10 types of vegetables):
- 500 ml of broth;
- 2 potatoes;
- 2 red onions;
- 2 medium-sized carrots;
- celery stalk, fennel;
- 4-5 tomatoes;
- 200 g of beans;
- 1 zucchini;
- spinach;
- 3 cloves of garlic;
- 1 bay leaf;
- 70 g of pasta;
- Parmesan (for serving);
- 1 bunch of basil;
- salt and pepper;
- olive oil.
Beans, ideally, need fresh, but dry is also suitable, in which case it must be soaked in advance, and then boiled until half-cooked (about an hour). Stew the vegetables while it is boiling. In a large pot with a thick bottom, heat olive oil and stew onions, fennel, carrots, celery, garlic and basil stalks for 20 minutes. Then add mashed tomatoes, zucchini and cook for 20 minutes. Then add the broth, diced potatoes, beans, spinach, small pasta and cook until the pasta is cooked.
Pour the finished soup into plates, garnish with basil leaves and grated parmesan, drizzle with olive oil, sometimes pesto sauce is also added . In general, the minestrone cooks on average about two hours, which explains its deep and rich taste. Italian soups, recipes of which can be found in large quantities, are very democratic in terms of vegetables. Seasonality is the principle not only of the minestrone, but of the whole kitchen. Therefore, in the summer, everyone has the opportunity to cook such dishes. Do not deny yourself the pleasure!
Where does brodetto come from?
This is a typical Mediterranean dish. The abundance of fish and seafood for the Marche region in southern Italy is a common thing for locals. It is enough that the dish was prepared by sailors from everything that they did not sell (small fish or damaged), adding to it for the volume of mollusks and even algae. For us, it is becoming almost delicious. Italian brodetto soup in Ancona is traditionally made from 13 varieties of fish (in some sources this is explained by the number of apostles participating in the Last Supper). They include red mullet, sea bream, ruff, mullet, sea bass, mackerel, flounder, as well as squids, shrimps and shellfish.
Brodetto recipe
So, for the soup you will need:
- Sea fish - 2 kg.
- Olive oil - 150 ml.
- Tomatoes - 2 pcs.
- Onion - 2 pcs.
- White wine vinegar - 150 ml.
- Salt, pepper, basil.
Fish should be cleaned, washed well and cut into portions or only the fillet should be separated. But Italian sailors were unlikely to separate the fillets and separately cooked fish broth from the remaining bones. Cookware is preferably clay. Pour olive oil, heat it and fry finely chopped onions. Then you need to pour the vinegar and wait until it evaporates, and then add the mashed potatoes from the tomatoes, basil and stew for about 30 minutes. Then lay the fish and seafood, depending on the time of their preparation: the first shrimp with squid, add the last sea language. Or put everything in layers, salt, pepper and fill with water. Simmer for 20-25 minutes. To serve slices of white bread must be dried in the oven, grate with a mixture of salt, pepper, garlic and olive oil. Put them on the bottom of the plates into which you will pour the soup. Serve everything hot.
Sea goulash - kachucco
This is a very thick and rich soup native to Tuscany. The cooking process, and the composition is very similar to brodetto. The only difference is that the main ingredients are seafood (mussels, scallops, squid, shrimp, octopus, langoustines, cuttlefish), and not fish, although it is also added. Soup is very popular in the largest port of Tuscany - Livorno.
Pasta and beans, basil and oregano, zucchini and tomatoes, seafood and olive oil - all this is Italian cuisine. Soups, recipes of which evoke appetite even in the most capricious and demanding. Thick and bright, sharp and rich, easy to prepare and sophisticated.