Minestrone may very well be the most popular of all Italian soups. It was first created as a way of using leftover vegetables from the previous night’s dinner, so as not to let those vegetables or anything go to waste. Minestrone can be made from any variety of vegetables, most popular are: onions, potatoes, carrots, zucchini, tomatoes, and peas. Add a little salt, pepper, olive oil, and garlic, cook and right there you have the basic Minestrone Soup. The main thing that makes Minestrone Genovese different from this or other basic Minestrone soups, is the addition when serving the Minestrone, adding a dollop of freshly made Basil Pesto, Genoa’s most famous food item of all, that just about everybody loves.
MINESTRONE GENOVESE
Ingredients :
5 tablespoons best quality Italian Olive Oil
1 medium Onion, peeled and chopped
2 Carrots, peeled and cut to medium dice
2 medium Zucchini, washed and diced ½” dice
5 plum Tomatoes, fresh or canned, chopped
2 large Potatoes, peeled and cut to ¾” dice
2 Bay Leaves
2 cloves Garlic, peeled and chopped
7 cups water
1 cup frozen Peas
2 cups fresh Spinach, washed and chopped
¼ pound Stellini Pastina, or Ditalini
1 teaspoon each of Salt & ground Black Pepper
1 – 15 ounce can Cannellini Beans
3 tablespoons Basil Pesto (preceding Recipe)
Preparation :
Add the Olive Oil and chopped Onions to a large stainless steel pot.
Turn the heat on to medium and cook for 4 minutes while stirring.
Lower heat to low, and add the garlic. Cook on low heat for 3 minutes.
Add the Tomatoes. Sprinkle a little salt & black pepper over the tomatoes.
Cook on medium heat for 4 minutes, stirring with a wooden spoon.
Add the Carrots and Zucchini and stir.
Add the Potatoes, the water, and Bay Leaves, Slat, & Black Pepper. Turn heat to high and bring all to the boil.
Once the water is boiling, lower heat so the soup is at a low simmer. Let cook for 25-30 minutes.
While the soup is simmering, cook the pasta in a separate pot in boiling salted water, according to directions on the package. Strain the pasta in a colander and let cool.
After the soup has been cooking for 25 minutes, add the Cannellini Beans, and cook on medium heat for 4 minutes.
Add the Spinach and cook for 3 minutes.
Add the cooked Pasta and cook over medium heat for 2 minutes.
The soup is done.
To serve, fill a soup bowl with the Minestrone. Add a small dollop of Basil Pesto and serve.
Enjoy!
This Recipe is complements from author Daniel Bellino
It is excerpted from his forthcoming cookbook, which he is currently working on. The working title of the book is “Rome Venice Pizza Pasta and ???”
Note : This is what is known as a “working title” and it may or may not be the Title of the Book, once published.
Duck ragu with bigoli is a traditional dish here in Veneto where I live. In fact, if you visit the region you are bound to find it in many restaurants. It is also often cooked by the Venetians on holidays or feast days.
Bigoli looks like a very thick spaghetti and is often eaten with various fat-rich sauces; the most well-known bigoli recipe is with duck ragu. In the past, the traditional recipe for this dish involved cooking the pasta in a fatty broth in which a young duck had been boiled.
The Venetians then made a sauce with flavored butter and the offal of the duck, which they ate with the bigoli. The duck itself was eaten after.
DUCK RAGU Recipe :
Ingredients :
1 whole Duck
5 Tablespoons Olive Oil, and 1 tablespoons Butter
1 Carrot & 2 Clery Stalks, and 1 small Onion
2 Bay Leaves and I bunch fresh Sage
3 tablespoons Tomato Paste, and 1 cup Tomato Pasta (puree)
3/4 teaspoon Salt, and 3/4 teaspoon ground Black Pepper
3/4 cup dry Red Wine
1 pound fresh Bigoli Pasta, or Spaghetti or Bucatini
Cut the Duck into 4 pieces, and place on a large baking pan. Season with a little salt and black Pepper. Place in a 350 degree oven and roast for 16 minutes.
Take the Duck out of the oven and pour off excess fat that has rendered out of the duck. You can save the fate to use for roasting potatoes at another time.
Place the duck back in the oven to cook more.
Place the olive oil, carrots, onions, and Celery in a large pot and cook on medium heat for 4 minutes. Sprinkle on a little Salt and Black Pepper, and continue cooking on low heat for 7 minutes.
Add the Tomato Paste to pot and cook on high heat for 4 minutes. Add the wine, and cook on high heat for 7 minutes, until the wine half reduced by half its original volume.
Add the tomato paste and sage and cook on medium heat until the tomatoes start to bubble.
Remove the Duck from the oven after it has cooked for a total of 30 to 35 minutes. Drain the fat off the Duck.
Place the Duck pieces in the pot with the Tomatoes. Cook on low heat for about 1 and 15 minutes. Make you stir the bottom of the pot from time to time with a wooden spoon, to keep the sauce from burning on the bottom.
Remove the Duck from the pot and let it cool for about 15 minutes. Also remove the burn of Sage and Bay Leaves from the pot and discard.
Once the Duck has cooled, remove the meat from the bones. Place the duck meat back into the sauce pot and cook on a very low flame for 20 minutes.
Cook your pasta of choice as the duck is simmering.
Take a half cup of pasta water from the pot and set aside. When the pasta is finished cooking, drain the pasta in a colander. Place the pasta back in the pot it cooked in, add about 2 cups of the Duck Ragu to the pot, with a knob of butter and 1 tablespoon of olive oil and mix.
Divide the pasta among 4 to 6 plates, in equal portions. Add about 3 tablespoons of the Duck Ragu on top of each portion of pasta and serve.
Serve with grated Prmigiano Reggiano or Grana Padano Cheese on the side.
This is The OFFICAL RECIPE for BOLOGNESE RAGU of BOLOGNA, ITALY
This RECIPE CRITERIA for a Properly Made “RAGU” (of Bologna) according to
AGRICOLTURA Di BOLOGNA (The Agricultural Commission of BOLOGNA)
This is the renewed recipe for the real ragù alla bolognese:
INGREDIENTS AND DOSES (FOR 6 PEOPLE)
Coarsely ground beef: 400 g; Fresh sliced pork belly, 150 g; half an onion, about 60 g; 1 carrot, about 60 g; 1 stick of celery, about 60 g; 1 glass of red or white wine; Tomato puree: 200 g; Double concentrated tomato paste: 1 tablespoon; 1 glass of whole milk (optional); Light meat or vegetable broth (also stock cube); Extra virgin olive oil: 3 tablespoons; Salt and pepper.
PROCEDURE
In a non-stick saucepan (of excellent quality, heavy) or made of aluminum or enameled cast iron (once upon a time the earthenware pot was very popular) of 24-26 cm in diameter, melt the minced or chopped bacon with 3 tablespoons of oil. Then, add the finely chopped herbs on the cutting board (do not use the mixer) and slowly fry the mixture over medium-low heat, always stirring with a wooden spoon (the onion must absolutely not take on a burnt flavor). Raise the heat and add the minced meat and, always stirring carefully, cook it for about ten minutes until it “sizzles”.
Pour the wine and let it evaporate and reduce completely, until you no longer smell the wine and then add the concentrate and the puree. Continuing to mix well, pour a cup of boiling broth (but you can also use just water) and cook slowly, with the container covered, for about 2 hours (even 3 hours depending on your preferences and the meats used) adding the hot broth as needed. Halfway through cooking, according to an advisable ancient tradition, you can add the milk that must be reduced completely. Finally, once cooking is finished, season with salt and pepper. The ragù should be a nice dark orange color, enveloping and creamy.
NOTE :
Traditionally in Bologna they used the “cartella”, that is the diaphragm of the beef, today difficult to find. In its absence, or in addition, the front cuts rich in collagen are to be preferred such as the muscle, the shoulder, the under-shoulder, the belly, the brisket. Mixed cuts can be made. According to a modern processing technique, the meats are browned well separately, alone, and then mixed with the chopped herbs, also already browned.
VARIANTS ALLOWED :
1) Mixed meats: beef (about 60%) and pork (about 40%) (loin or neck);
2) Minced meat;
3) Rolled or flat pork belly instead of fresh bacon;
4) A scent of nutmeg;
VARIANTS NOT ALLOWED
1) Veal pulp;
2) Smoked bacon;
3) Only pork;
4) Garlic, rosemary, parsley, other herbs or spices;
“Over the years, the recipe registered in 1982 has been reported in books, magazines, newspaper articles and websites in Italy and the rest of the world, constituting a clear and reliable point of reference; however, after four decades, a study of the changes that have occurred in the creation of this symbolic dish of Italian cuisine, loved throughout the world, was required.
There have been improvements in ingredients, in the quality of containers and in heat sources, as well as changes in eating habits which have had partial effects on the way ragù is prepared.
The three Bolognese Delegations have therefore set up a “Study Committee” for the updating and improvement of the recipe for Ragù alla Bolognese and, in order to obtain a current and complete overview, the Committee has consulted, through a specific questionnaire: the best restaurants in the city, custodians of tried and tested recipes; families with ancient traditions; expert gastronomes.
Ragù alla Bolognese, like all long-standing recipes, is made in families and restaurants in ever-changing ways, as demonstrated by the fact that the recipes received during the study are all different from each other, often in small details but, at times, also with substantial differences.
The “Study Committee”, making a reasoned synthesis, has therefore drawn up a new version of Ragù alla Bolognese which is very detailed in the procedure, with variations (allowed and not allowed) and advice on the cuts of meat and on possible “enrichments”.
The three Bolognese Delegations of the Italian Academy of Cuisine have thus decreed which recipe currently adheres most closely to the formula that guarantees the classic and traditional taste of the true Ragù alla Bolognese, which is what is made, cooked, served and enjoyed today in homes, in restaurants and in bars.
trattorias and restaurants in learned and fat Bologna.
The registered recipe is not intended to be the only possible one, but rather to be a safe guide to the creation of an excellent dish that does not betray traditional customs and establishes some fixed points, with the awareness that, as with musical scores, the true art lies in the execution”.
The notarial deed of the recipe is now jealously guarded in the Palazzo della Mercanzia. It completes the collection of thirty-four recipes of the Bolognese gastronomic culture deposited. All the result of the collaboration between the Chamber of Commerce of Bologna and the Italian Academy of Cuisine that began on April 16, 1972 with the deposit of the golden measure of the authentic Ta