This week's lunch: Pasta e fagioli

Spring in Berlin is a topsy turvy affair. A few days of stunning warmth followed by another few days of grey wet cold. Last week it was more of the grey and i chose to make this recipe for my week's lunches.

I used the recipe from one of my favourite books Twelve by Tessa Kiros. I've been slowly building up my collection of her books. Each one is a treasure trove of gorgeous photos, mingled with personal recollections and reflections, and an abundance of great recipes.

This is one of those dishes that is a store cupboard staple, using ingredients that I usually have to hand: beans, pasta, tomato paste, carrots, celery, onions and garlic. I cut the recipe below in half when i made it, and it made 4 lunches worth.

Pasta e fagioli serves 6
from Twelve by Tessa Kiros

300g dried cannellini or other white beans, soaked overnight in cold water
1 medium carrot peeled and chopped
1 stalk of celery, trimmed and chopped
1 medium onion, peeled and chopped
200g ditalini or other similar small pasta
6 Tbs olive oil
3 garlic cloves, peeled
2 sprigs of rosemary
1 small dried red chilli, crumbled
1 Tbsp tomato paste
Extra virgin olive oil, to serve

1. Drain the soaked beans. Put them into a saucepan, cover abundantly with cold water and bring to the boil. Skim the surface of any scum, lower the heat and add the carrot, celery and onion. Cook for about 1-1/2 hours or until the beans are soft. Add more water during cooking time if necessary to keep the beans well covered and, towards the end, season with salt and pepper.


2. Cook the pasta in boiling salted water, following the packet instructions. Drain and put into a bowl with a little olive oil to prevent the pasta sticking together.


3. Heat the olive oil on a medium heat in a separate large pot. Add the garlic, the rosemary, the chilli and the tomato paste. Saute gently to flavour the oil until the garlic is lightly golden. Remove the garlic and rosemary branches and discard.


4. Pass half of the cooked beans through the fine-holed disc of a food mill, or puree in a blender and add to the saucepan with the flavoured oil. Add the whole beans as well and about 1 ltr of their cooking water. Return to the heat and simmer for a few more minutes to mix the flavours./li>
   
5. Add the cooked pasta and stir through. It should have the consistency of a thick, creamy soup. add a little more hot water if it seems too thick. Serve hot, drizzled with extra virgin olive oil.

Blog-Event LXIII - Gute Vorsätze für das Neue Jahr

This is my first foray into German food blog events and in a slightly recursive way is all about resolutions.

The blog event theme is about cooking or food related resolutions and participating in it fulfills some other resolutions of mine:

Resolution 1: to re-energise Travels With My Fork (our blogging dropped off in 2010)
Resolution 2: to make more of an effort to network with German food bloggers, because, well, we live here now.

This post is also about Resolution 3 which is to eat healthier breakfasts in 2011. I go through phases with breakfasting. For a month or so I was fixated on vollkorn bread with a smear of leberwurst. Then I switched to cereal. And more recently I've been having a brötchen with sliced meat and cheese. I wait until I get to work to eat my breakfast so something transportable is a prerequisite.

Last year, when i was working down by London bridge, I went through a stint of breakfasting on simple miso soups that Kelsie would prepare in advance. Those were by far the most satisfying for me. I could stave off any elevenses cravings for a biscuit or sweet thing, if I had my bowl of miso soup in the morning. And the additional perk was that this soup is not heavy or carb-laden. Pluses all around!



The recipe I've used comes from Harumi's Japanese Home Cooking. It takes no more than 20 minutes to make and is flavourful and restorative at the same time.

Carrot and Miso Soup
100g carrots, peeled and cut into thick circles
200 ml water
1 chicken stock cube or 2 tsp chicken stock powder
1 rasher streaky bacon
1 celery stick finely chopped (i used celeriac)
1/2 tsp miso
salt and pepper
coriander to garnish (i used chopped spring onion)

1. Bring the water with chicken stock to a boil.


2. Add the carrots and cover with a cartouche. Lower the heat to a simmer and cook until the carrots are tender.


3. Take the carrots off the heat and mash in the stock until broken up into small bits.


4. Fry the bacon until crispy. Take off the heat and stir in the chopped celery.


5. Add the bacon and celery to the carrots and bring to the boil again.


6. Turn off the heat and stir in the miso until dissolved.


7. Season with salt and pepper.


8. Serve garnished with coriander leaves.

Zuppa di ceci

sundays seem to be turning into soup days. i like bringing my own food into work and can't bother thinking up something new every morning before work, so one-pot solutions are the easiest option.

one of these days i'll get organised to try these for lunch. but for the time being i'll stick with leftover or soups.

this past sunday i decided to make chickpea soup, or zuppa di ceci (pronounced che chi in italian). making it was a doddle and eating it this week for lunch has been a restorative remedy for the winter blues.

Zuppa di Ceci

500g dried chickpeas, soaked overnight
1 medium onion, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
1 stick celery, chopped
garlic (1-2 cloves chopped depending on how garlicky you want it)
1 small dried chili
rosemary sprigs (i used 2 but was told that it could have been a lot more)
olive oil
2 medium tomatoes, skinned and chopped
small bunch swiss chard, finely shredded

1. Drain the chickpeas and put in a large pot with the onion, carrot and celery. Add 14 cups water -- if it doesn't all fit at once, add the water while the soup is cooking.


2. Bring to the boil and skim any scum off the top. Reduce the heat to medium and let cook uncovered for 1.5 hours, or until the chickpeas are butter soft. Add more water if you need it. When the chickpeas are close to being cooked through add salt and ground pepper to taste.


3. Puree 2/3 of the chickpea mixture in a blender and return to the pot with the rest of the soup. Add hot water if it seems too thick.


4. In a separate pot, heat the olive oil and add the chopped garlic, rosemary and chilli. When you start to smell the garlic add the chard. Saute for a few minutes until the chard starts to wilt. Add the chopped tomatoes, reduce the heat and cook for about 5-7 minutes or until the tomato mixture cooks down and thickens.


5. Remove the rosemary sprigs and stir the tomato mixture into the soup and let simmer over a low heat until the flavours come together (about another 10-15 minutes). Check for seasoning. Serve with grilled bread that has been rubbed with garlic and drizzled with extra virgin olive oil.

using up the box part 1: caldo verde

yesterday i made two dishes out of the veg box. one was ratatouille which i'll feature tomorrow, and the other was Caldo Verde.

Caldo Verde is a hearty Portuguese soup/stew made of potatoes, cabbage, and linguica sausage. I haven't found any Portuguese ingredient purveyors in Glasgow yet. Let me know if you know of one! Otherwise i'll try a mail-order of linguica from here. Another alternative would be to try it out with luganega sausage as apparently both varieties of sausage stem from the same family of people. To be honest though, I made it with chorizo sausage and it was just fine!

I must have first tried Caldo Verde when I was on holiday in Provincetown, MA. There are a lot of people of Portuguese descent there and you can find lots of places serving Caldo Verde. Here is a nice write-up about Provincetown's Caldo Verde reputation.

On to the recipe. I used the one from The Hairy Bikers' Cookbook. I really enjoy their programs and especially like how they use food to make a connection with a new place. The recipe in the book serves approx 8 people so I halved it:

Caldo Verde
3 baking potatoes, peeled and diced
1 large onion, finely chopped
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 bay leaf
750 ml chicken or vegetable stock
150 g chorizo
large bunch kale or greens
1 tsp smoked paprika
olive oil

1. In a large pan, sweat the onions in olive oil for about 5 minutes until they start to soften. add the garlic and cook for 2 minutes more. add the chorizo and cook and 5 minutes, until the sausage starts to brown.


2. Add the potatoes and stir until they absorb some of the oil that has been released from the sausage. Pour in the stock and add the bay leaf. Simmer until the potatoes are tender and falling apart.


3. Meanwhile, finely chop the greens. I used the shredding disc on my food processor to do this, but you're fine to just finely chop them with a knife. the key is to not have any large pieces of the thick woody stalks.


4. When the potatoes are ready, remove the bay leaf from the pan and mash the potato into the broth making a thick chowder-like consistency. Blanch the greens in boiling water for a minute or two, and add to the potato broth. Season to taste.


5. Mix together the smoked paprika and some olive oil and stir into the soup just before serving. Serve with toasted sourdough or rustic bread to mop up all the yummy juice.