Minestrone soup .. [Olive garden]

[Comes close to: Olive Garden’s minestrone soup]

[Serves 4]

[Inspiration: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jflYa63XhE4Watch it more for how this lady does it calmly with her little kids helping(?) around the stove. I could never do it!]

I don’t remember a time when I walked into Olive Garden and walked out without having their Minestrone soup. I missed it sorely, here in Pune. Every restaurant in Pune that served Minestrone, thought it was tomato soup with pasta, or worse. The day I tried Minestrone soup which came as ‘tomato soup with a spicy tadka’, my quest to find it in a restaurant ended. And a new quest began – to try it at home. The video recipe after some variations and some omissions (no celery and zucchini here) finally resulted in Nirvana – my home made chunky Minestrone soup.

Mind you – you need a lot of ingredients, albeit in limited portions, so make sure you have made plans for what’s left over.

Ingredients:

1. 1 tbsp olive oil
2. 1 cup chopped/shredded carrot
3. 1 cup chopped string beans
4.  ½ cup onion – cut long
5.  ¼ cup diced zucchini (if available)
6.  ½ cup fine sliced cabbage
7.  4 cloves garlic – chopped
8. 6 ripe tomatoes.
9. 1 cup chopped spinach.
10. 5 cups vegetable broth. If you are using store brought broth, ingredients 2-6 have to be reduced to half portions.
11. ¼ cup celery cut into small pieces (if available)
12.   ½ cup shell pasta. Any pasta would do. I had Penne at home, so I cut it into smaller pieces once cooked.
13.  ½ cup Kidney beans (rajma)
14. 3 tsp Italian seasoning (basil, thyme, oregano, rosemary). I didn’t have enough so I just used up the left over seasoning sachets that came with a previously ordered Dominoe’s pizza.
15. Salt to taste
16. Sugar (optional) if you find it too sour.

Broth:

First make the broth by boiling together ingredients 2-6 with 6 cups water. Add black pepper powder. Strain and remove vegetables. (We will need the broth but only half the vegetables.)

Method:

1. Soak kidney beans overnight and pressure cook till soft.
2. Cook the pasta well.
3. Blanch tomatoes. Peel skin and cut into small pieces. Avoid the seeds as far as possible.
4. Heat olive oil in a pan. Add garlic and sauté for a minute.
5. Add half the vegetables used for making the broth. Sauté again.
6. Add seasoning
7. Pour all the remaining ingredients (broth, pasta, beans, spinach, celery)
8. Boil for few minutes.
9. Add salt and sugar to taste.
10. Serve hot.

I can assure, there would be no left over soup to store. But what do you do with the left over ingredients? Here are some suggestions –

1.    Boiled vegetables - Since the broth was made at home, I had to use plenty of vegetables to get the flavor. But you don’t want to use all the vegetables in the soup. So use the remaining boiled veggies for making veg rolls the next day. (Veggies + mayo + raw onion + chaat masala + chilly sauce + cheese all rolled in a warm toasted chapatti/tortilla.

2.     Spinach – Since you need only one cup spinach for the soup, use the remaining from your bunch for some very tasty spinach-paneer sandwich (check out the recipe at http://thefoodiefeeds.blogspot.in/2013/12/palak-paneer-sandwiches-food-court-city.html ).