Minestrone With Fresh Borlotti Beans and Farro

This vegetarian soup calls for only water as the base liquid, so we have some tactics to make it really flavorful: 1. the rind from a used piece of parmesan cheese infuses flavor into the soup as it cooks, 2. herbs like bay, rosemary and thyme spice it up and 3. a “Batutto” of aromatic vegetables browns in olive oil so that, when the water is added, you already have a delicious golden broth. I have tailored the ingredient list to my own tastes, omitting the canonical green beans (yeck!) and zucchini (not in season here) and replacing them with fennel and dried Chinese mushrooms. Rather than pasta or rice, I have used the Italian wheat-like grain “farro” (a.k.a. emmer or spelt) which I find hearty and delicious. Finally, I couldn’t resist buying some fresh borlotti beans at the market, so I’m using those. If you plan to use dried beans, be sure to soak them the night before and cook them separately to tenderness before adding to this recipe. Minestrone is a very flexible dish. Add to or subtract from the soup ingredient list as you wish.

Serves A Small Army
Ingredients of the batutto:
2 carrots
1 large onion
2 celery ribs
2 garlic cloves
¼ cup olive oil
5 dried Chinese mushrooms

Soup Ingredients
8 cups water
1 bay leaf
1 tsp chopped rosemary
piece of Parmesan cheese rind
5 dried Chinese mushrooms (optional), diced
2 carrots, in a small dice
2 large potatoes, peeled and diced
½ cup farro
1 leek, halved longways, carefully rinsed and horizontally sliced thin
2 celery ribs, diced
3 savoy cabbage leaves, sliced thin
5 leaves of Tuscan kale (a.k.a. dinosaur kale, cavolo lacinato), sliced thin
2 lbs fresh borlotti beans in their beautiful pink-and-white pods, shelled
1 sm or ½ large fennel bulb
1 28-oz can of chopped tomatoes (or peeled whole tomatoes that you squoosh between your fingers)
½ tsp thyme
salt and pepper to taste

Serving accompaniments:
High quality extra virgin olive oil to drizzle on top and Parmesan cheese to grate

Place the carrots, onion, celery and garlic from the batutto ingredient list into a food processor and process until you have a paste (in Italian, a batutto). Heat the oil in a large stock pot and add the paste. Heat the oil in a very large frying pan or a wide sauce pan over medium heat. Add the vegetable batutto and cook until all the vegetable liquid has evaporated and the mixture starts to fry in the oil. Meanwhile pulverize the Chinese mushrooms in a spice grinder and add the mushroom powder to the batutto. Once the batutto begins to brown, add 8 cups of water, the parmesan rind, the bay leaf and rosemary and bring to the boil. Add the diced carrots and mushrooms (from the “Soup Ingredients” list) cook for 5 minutes, add the potatoes and farro, cook for another 5 minutes. Add the leek, celery, cabbage, kale, fresh borlotti beans, fennel and can of tomatoes and cook for another 30 minutes. Music to cook all hose vegetables by: "Meat is Murder" by the Smiths. If your soup is getting too solid, add water. Check for salt periodically, add thyme, salt and pepper. When the 30 minutes is up, the soup is ready for a drizzle of olive oil and sprinkle of parmesan but next-day leftovers will be even better!