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Minestrone June 5, 2007
Nature throws up some beautiful fruits and vegetables – glowing red peppers, green beet leaves veined in deep red, glistening pomegranate seeds, eggplants, baby radishes, purple grapes, persimmons, strawberries. And borlotti beans. These beans are commonly used in Italian cooking and go under a variety of names: cranberry beans, crab eye beans, Roman beans, saluggia. They have cream and pink pods and the beans themselves are cream, splashed with streaks of pink through to deep crimson. The borlotti bean season runs from late autumn into winter – if you happen to be lucky enough to find fresh ones. Otherwise they are readily available dried or canned. My luck was in recently and I came home from one of my foraging expeditions with a large bag of the beauties. The lady who sold them to me said she was Maltese and recommended using them in a minestrone. “You were right about the borlotti beans,” I told her the next week. “Beautiful.” “Oh,” she replied. “I always use the dried ones.” Unfortunately, when the fresh beans are cooked, they lose their splashes of pink and red. A minestrone is a soup of fresh vegetables and herbs along with pasta or rice and pulses.
Minestrone 500g fresh borlotti beans shelled (or 100g dried
beans, soaked overnight) Heat the oil and add the bacon, onion, garlic and carrots and sauté for five minutes. Add the beans, herbs, celery and tomatoes and the stock or water and simmer for at least an hour (or until the dried beans are cooked). Season to taste. Add the pasta, cabbage or spinach and zucchini and simmer until the pasta is al dente. Serve in bowls and garnish with a sprig of parsley.
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