- 6 months ago
There are many ways to make this rustic Italian comfort meal, but Chef John’s method might be the best. In this video, he shows you how to make his thick and hearty recipe for Italian Ribollita, otherwise known as Tuscan bread soup. Loaded with torn pieces of Italian bread, fresh vegetables, and flavorful herbs and spices, this is one of the world’s most satisfying dinners.
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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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