2024 Author: Isabella Gilson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:14
Soups are an integral part of our diet. Someone is indifferent to them, others do not like, and still others cannot imagine dinner without them. But it's impossible not to love Italian soups. Their recipes are innumerable, each family cooks in its own way, each village observes centuries-old traditions and considers only its version to be primordially true and correct. Let's get acquainted with the masterpieces of Italian gastronomy, which are often simple in ingredients and preparation.
Italian soups
Some of the most popular soups of Italian cuisine can still be distinguished from all the abundance and variety.
- Ribollita soup. The pleasant and melodious name is translated quite usually and prosaically - "overcooked" or "cooked twice". From time immemorial, the recipe was formed not in exquisite aristocratic cuisines, but in the families of ordinary poor people, when it was necessary to feed a large family at minimal cost.
- Minestrone is perhaps the most famous Italian soup with pasta or rice. Its time comes when the vegetables of the new crop ripen. Each family cooks it in its own way, there is no single option. Minestrone literally translates from Italian as "big soup" and is characterized by a large number of different vegetables.
- Pappa al pomodoro - the name speaks for itself. It is immediately clear that the main violin in it is tomatoes. This Italian soup comes from sunny Tuscany.
- Brodetto is an exquisite and at the same time simple soup-stew made from seafood and fish. 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 - bouillabaisse, then in Italy - Anconian brodetto.
- Kachukko. This Italian soup is also made with seafood and heavily spiced with chili.
Ribollita: peasant soup recipe
In reality, everything elementary is simple. The Italian ribollita soup is made from what used to be available to the poor, but now from what is in the refrigerator. But the main thing remains unchanged - the complete absence of meat (it is replaced by beans), Tuscan uns alted bread and two types of cabbage: black and Savoy. Without these ingredients, real ribolitta will not work. From vegetables, carrots, zucchini, potatoes, onions, beet leaves, tomatoes and tomato paste, celery, parsley are also used. Boil the beans, cut all the vegetables: cabbage - into strips, and the rest into cubes. ATIn a large saucepan, heat the olive oil and cook the vegetables in it, observing 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 water. Add the ingredients one at a time, each time you need to simmer for 2-3 minutes. Divide the beans into three parts, wipe two to a puree consistency. Add it to the ribolitta and cook the soup over low heat for another 1-1.5 hours, remembering to stir. Twenty minutes before full readiness, put the whole beans. Serve the soup in a large dish, where slices of bread and ribollite are laid out in layers.
Italian tomato soup
When it's tomato season, it's time for pappa al pomodoro soup in Tuscany. Tomatoes grow and ripen in our country, so why not treat yourself and your loved ones to this thick and fragrant summer soup. You can talk long and hard about the fact 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, to make Italian tomato soup, wait until the tomato season, buy or harvest from your own garden the largest, fleshy and ripe vegetables, and then get down to business. Take the following recipe as a basis.
For the soup you will need:
- 1 kg ripe tomatoes;
- 1 large onion;
- 500 ml broth (chicken, vegetable);
- large onion;
- 2 garlic cloves;
- 200g white stale bread;
- olivebutter;
- s alt, pepper to taste;
- chili pepper (small);
- basil.
The cooking process begins with the processing of tomatoes. They must be cut crosswise and dipped in boiling water for 2-3 minutes, after which the skin can be easily removed. The seeds must be removed and the flesh cut into cubes. Next, you need to chop the onion, garlic, basil and hot chili pepper. Heat olive oil in a frying pan. Fry the onion first (3 minutes), then add the tomatoes (another 4 minutes), garlic and basil. Simmer all 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 more minutes, until tender. Just before serving, drizzle pappa al pomodoro with olive oil and season with black pepper.
Italian Minestrone Pasta Soup
According to celebrity chef Jamie Oliver, who also wrote a cookbook about Italy, there are exactly 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 that are 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 that you cannot find on the market and feed the Italians, then at best they will just laugh. Secondly, this Italian soup is cooked with water or vegetablebroth and much less often - on meat. In the first case, a light dish is obtained, and in the second, a satisfying one. And thirdly, the subtlety lies in the preliminary heat treatment of some vegetables - soffritto, that is, frying (onions, garlic, carrots, celery and fennel) over low heat.
Minestrone recipe
With vegetables, everything is clear: every housewife picks up 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, sweet peppers, cabbage, tomatoes, celery, fennel. Be sure, well, or desirable, the presence of legumes (beans, peas or beans). An approximate list of ingredients for soup (substitute one for another or exclude, but remember that in a real minestrone there should be at least 10 types of vegetables):
- 500ml stock;
- 2 potatoes;
- 2 red onions;
- 2 medium carrots;
- celery stalk, fennel;
- 4-5 tomatoes;
- 200g beans;
- 1 zucchini;
- spinach;
- 3 garlic cloves;
- 1 bay leaf;
- 70g pasta;
- parmesan (for serving);
- 1 bunch basil;
- s alt and pepper;
- olive oil.
Beans are ideally needed fresh, but dry ones are also suitable, in this case it must be soaked in advance, and then boiled until half cooked (about an hour). While it cooks, simmer the vegetables. In a large heavy-bottomed saucepan, heat the olive oil and sauté the onion, fennel, carrot, celery, garlic, andstems from basil for 20 minutes. Then add mashed tomatoes, zucchini and cook for 20 minutes. Then add stock, diced potatoes, beans, spinach, fine pasta and cook until pasta is tender.
Pour the finished soup into bowls, garnish with basil leaves and grated parmesan, drizzle with olive oil, sometimes pesto sauce is also added. In general, minestrone is cooked on average for about two hours, which explains its deep and rich taste. Italian soups, the recipes of which can be found in large quantities, are very democratic in terms of vegetables. Seasonality is a principle not only for minestrone, but for the whole kitchen in general. Therefore, in the summer, everyone has the opportunity to cook such dishes. Indulge yourself in 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 local residents. It is enough that the sailors prepared this dish from everything that they did not sell (small fish or damaged), adding shellfish and even algae to it for volume. For us, it becomes almost a delicacy. Italian Brodetto soup in Ancona is traditionally prepared from 13 varieties of fish (in some sources this is explained by the number of apostles who participated in the Last Supper). Red mullet, sea bream, sea ruff, mullet, sea bass, mackerel, flounder, as well as squid, shrimp and shellfish are used.
Brodetto recipe
So, for the soupyou will need:
- Sea fish - 2 kg.
- Olive oil - 150 ml.
- Tomatoes - 2 pcs
- Onion - 2 pcs
- White wine vinegar - 150 ml.
- S alt, pepper, basil.
The fish should be cleaned, washed well and cut into portions or only the fillet should be separated. But the Italian sailors were unlikely to separate the fillets and cook the fish broth separately from the remaining bones. It is preferable to take clay dishes for cooking. Pour in the olive oil, heat it up and fry the finely chopped onions. Then you need to pour in the vinegar and wait until it evaporates, and then add the tomato puree, basil and simmer for about 30 minutes. Next, lay the fish, and seafood, depending on the time of their preparation: the first shrimp with squid, add the sole last. Or fold everything in layers, s alt, pepper and fill with water. Simmer over low heat for 20-25 minutes. To serve, slices of white bread should be dried in the oven, grated with a mixture of s alt, pepper, garlic and olive oil. Put them on the bottom of the plates in which you will pour the soup. Serve hot.
Sea Goulash - Cucucco
This is a very thick and rich soup from 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. The soup is very popular in Tuscany's largest port, Livorno.
Pasta and beans,basil and oregano, zucchini and tomatoes, seafood and olive oil - all this is Italian cuisine. Soups, the recipes of which awaken the appetite of even the most capricious and pretentious. Thick and bright, spicy and rich, easy to prepare and delicious.
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