00:00Hello, this is Chef John from Foodwishes.com with Ribalita.
00:08That's right, there are many, many ways to make this Tuscan bread soup.
00:12And this is my way, which I think is a really good way.
00:15And a very, very thick way.
00:17In fact, we're going to make this so thick and hearty, it might not even be a soup anymore.
00:22But anyway, we'll get to that.
00:24For now, let's go ahead and get started by making some garlic oil.
00:27Now, which I'm going to do by smashing some garlic and a little bit of salt in this mortar.
00:32And if you don't have one of these, you can just use the back of a fork and smash the garlic in a bowl.
00:37And after that's been bashed up a bit, I'm going to add some olive oil in.
00:41And then what we'll do is give that a stir with our pestle for about 30 seconds or so.
00:46At which point our garlic oil is going to be ready for our torn bread, which will be the next thing we do.
00:52And what I'll be ripping apart today is an entire loaf of Italian ciabatta bread.
00:57Although any kind of crusty French or Italian bread will work here.
01:01And what we'll do is tear this into relatively large, very jagged chunks.
01:06And once that's been torn up and spread out on a parchment-lined sheet pan,
01:10we will spoon, drizzle, and pour our garlic oil over the top.
01:13And then we'll use our hands to give this a nice tossing.
01:16And I should mention, this is an optional step, and not a traditional step.
01:21Right, the soup is usually made with just stale bread.
01:24But I love what happens to the taste and the texture if we infuse the bread with garlic oil and toast it first.
01:30Which, after spreading that out into a nice even layer, we will do at 300 degrees for about 30 minutes or so.
01:37Or until the bread's pretty much dried out and starting to toast.
01:41And while this doesn't look super crunchy, the edges definitely are.
01:44And once that's cooled down, it should probably sound like this.
01:53And once our bread is set, there's one other thing I like to prep.
01:57Which would be to add one can of drained cannellini beans into a mixing bowl.
02:01And then we'll take a potato masher, and we will smash and mash these until they're fairly smooth.
02:07At which point we'll add a can of whole peeled San Marzano tomatoes.
02:10And we'll use the masher to smash those in and break them up.
02:15And we can smash that as smooth or coarse as we want.
02:18Right, personally I like this mixture very smooth.
02:20And by the way, we're going to use two cans of beans.
02:24But for the optimum texture, I like one of them to be smashed, and one of them to remain whole.
02:29And that's it.
02:30Once our bread is prepped, and our smashed tomato bean bowl has been done, we can go ahead and start cooking our soup.
02:37And that'll begin by adding some celery, carrots, and onions, and a nice big pinch of salt into a soup pot.
02:43In which we've drizzled some olive oil.
02:45And what we'll do is saute this for about three or four minutes over medium-high heat.
02:50Until those onions start to soften up and turn translucent.
02:52And how exactly long that takes is going to depend on how small you cut your veggies.
02:58But once our mixture is looking something like this, we will stop.
03:02And we'll toss in the next set of ingredients, which will include some finely minced garlic.
03:06As well as some dry oregano, some dry thyme, some dried rosemary, as well as one bay leaf.
03:14And we'll go ahead and stir that in, and saute this for about one minute, before we add in our chicken broth.
03:21Which can of course be vegetable broth, or if times are tough, just plain water.
03:26But I do prefer the chicken broth.
03:28Oh, and speaking of water, let's take a nice big splash and rinse out that can the tomatoes came in.
03:34And we'll add that in as well.
03:36And then besides giving this a stir, what we'll do is raise our heat to high, and bring this up to a simmer.
03:42At which point we'll reduce it down to medium-low.
03:45And we'll let that cook for about ten minutes or so.
03:48Just to make sure our veggies are beautifully soft and sweet.
03:52And once we feel like that's happened, we can raise our heat back up to high.
03:56Since we want this mixture simmering when we toss in our greens.
04:00And since this is a Tuscan soup, I thought Tuscan kale would be a great choice.
04:04As would any kind of kale, or Swiss chard, or collard greens, or mustard greens.
04:10Or I've even seen dandelions used.
04:13Oh yeah, you could probably harvest some right in your yard.
04:15But anyway, no matter what you use, we'll stir those in.
04:19And we'll let this cook for about five minutes or so.
04:22Stir it occasionally.
04:24And we'll do that to give these greens a little bit of a head start getting tender.
04:26Before we add the next set of ingredients.
04:30And kale gets tender pretty quick.
04:32But if you're using something like a collard green, it might take a little longer.
04:37So you might have to adjust your cooking time.
04:39But that's okay.
04:41That is just you cooking.
04:43But anyway, once my kale had simmered for about five or six minutes.
04:46I went ahead and tossed in some finely chopped Italian parsley.
04:50Followed by the other can of unsmashed beans.
04:53We'll also want to toss in some freshly ground black pepper.
04:57Plus a few shakes of cayenne.
04:59Just to stay in shape.
05:01And then we'll also grab our tomato bean bowl.
05:03And we'll transfer that in.
05:05And then stop me if you've heard this one before.
05:08But we'll take another splash of water or broth.
05:10And we'll rinse that bowl out.
05:11Oh yeah, if you want to be an honorary Italian grandma, we always want to rinse bowls and cans out with water.
05:18And add that to whatever we're cooking.
05:20And then what we'll do is give that a stir.
05:22And then we'll go grab our toasted garlicky bread chunks.
05:25And we will add in about half the loaf.
05:28And stir all that together.
05:30And I'm also at this point going to add another generous addition of salt.
05:34Since really the only way to mess this soup up would be to under-season it.
05:38And what our plan here is, is to simmer this for about 15 minutes.
05:43Or until that bread collapses into the soup and our greens are tender.
05:48And once we're back to a decent simmer, we can reduce our heat to medium probably.
05:52Oh and classically, it would be very common to throw a piece of parmesan rind in.
05:57Which I don't have, but I do have parmesan.
06:00So I'm going to go ahead and toss a handful in here.
06:02To basically get the same effect.
06:04Or at least something close.
06:05And that's it, after letting our soup simmer for about 15 minutes or so.
06:10It's probably going to look something like this.
06:13And once it does, we'll grab a spoon and check for a couple things.
06:17Okay, first we want to make sure our greens are tender enough.
06:20And mine were.
06:21And then we also of course want to taste for seasoning.
06:24And maybe add some more salt if needed.
06:27And since mine was tasting just about perfect.
06:29We can move into final production.
06:31Which for me involves stirring in about 3 tablespoons of white wine vinegar.
06:35Which is going to provide some much needed acidity.
06:39And we could do the same thing with some lemon.
06:41Which I'll use instead of the vinegar once in a while.
06:45Alright, it depends on my mood.
06:47And that's it.
06:47At this point our soup is basically done.
06:50So what we'll do is turn off the heat.
06:52And we'll add half of the remaining toasted bread chunks.
06:55And we'll sort of poke those in.
06:57And if you don't happen to be into super thick soups.
07:00You can simply use less bread.
07:03I mean you are after all this senor and senorita.
07:05Of your ribolita.
07:07And you could do this with half the amount of bread.
07:09And get something a lot soupier.
07:11And that's it.
07:12We'll go ahead and pull that off the heat.
07:13And add a few finishing touches to the top.
07:17Which for me will include another grating of cheese.
07:20Followed by another scattering of Italian parsley.
07:23And then I know we did a little bit of cayenne.
07:25But I think we still want a nice scattering of red chili flakes over the top.
07:30And then since the celery stalks I chopped up had these beautiful leaves on top.
07:34I decided to place them over.
07:36Since I always love an excuse.
07:38To use a little chartreuse.
07:40And that's it.
07:41We'll finish up with a very, very generous drizzle of olive oil.
07:45And my extra thick, super hearty, Tuscan bread soup is ready to enjoy.
07:51And as I grab a ladle to serve this up.
07:54You can see what I mean about this maybe not even being a soup anymore.
07:57I mean that is thick.
07:59But I will say.
08:00As I grab a bowl and serve some up.
08:03It's not quite as thick as it looks.
08:05Because what appear to be solid chunks of bread.
08:08Are really like 90% liquid.
08:09So the mouthfeel of this is way more soupy than the appearance.
08:14Oh and once you ladle this up.
08:16We'll take the remaining toasted bread.
08:18And we'll use that to garnish the top.
08:20With of course some more cheese, olive oil, and parsley.
08:24And that my friends to me is the epitome of rustic Italian comfort food.
08:29And no matter what's going on in your life.
08:31There is no way you don't feel better after eating this.
08:33Or at the very least much fuller.
08:37And yes, some people don't add any bread in until we serve the soup.
08:40And other folks add all the bread in before we serve the soup.
08:44But I think cooking half in and then adding some more at the end here is the way to go.
08:48At least in terms of textural diversity.
08:52And of course I don't need to tell you.
08:53If you have some extra veggies from the garden or already in the fridge cooked, feel free to add those in.
08:59Alright, along with a way to use up stale bread.
09:01That's pretty much the reason this soup was invented.
09:04But whether you tweak the ingredients or make this as shown,
09:08it's one of the world's heartiest and most satisfying soups.
09:10Which is why I really do hope you give this a try soon.
09:15So please follow the links below for the ingredient amounts,
09:18a printable written recipe, and much brain flow as usual.
09:22And as always, enjoy.
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