Vegetable Soup

Makes

About 14 quarts

Hardware

• A very large pot
• A smaller pot
• A saute pan

Ingredients

450	g		small red beans
900	g		chopped onions
675	g		chopped celery
675	g		mushrooms (raw)
225	g		chopped carrots
450	g		frozen baby lima beans
450	g		frozen peas
450	g		frozen corn
450	g		frozen green beans
450	g		ditalini
			water
			kosher salt
			olive oil
			dried herbs, to taste

Procedure

1. Rinse the red beans and pick out all stones and broken beans.


2. In the smaller pot, in water salted to 10 grams per liter, cook the red beans until just soft; remove from the heat but do not drain.


3. In a pot big enough to hold all of the soup, heat some olive oil then saute the onions until they’re soft but not brown.


4. In a saute pan, heat more olive oil and saute the celery until it starts to soften; remove to a holding bowl.


5. In the same saute pan used to cook the celery, saute the carrots until they start to soften.


6. In the saute pan, cook the mushrooms; when cooked, set aside but do not drain.


7. When the onions are soft, pour the red beans and their cooking water into the pot with the onions.


8. Add the mushrooms and any liquid in the pan into the main pot.


9. Add the dried herbs.


10. In pot used to cook the red beans, simmer the celery and carrots in just enough unsalted water to cover them; cook until soft, then add the vegetables and their cooking water to the main pot.


11. In the pot used to cook the red beans, cook the lima beans in water salted to 10 grams per liter; when the limas are soft, add the limas and their cooking water to the main pot.


12. In the pot used to cook the red beans (and the carrots and celery and the lima beans), in water salted to 10 grams per liter, cook the ditalini to al dente.


13. While the ditalini is cooking, add the peas, corn, and green beans to the main pot, then add just barely enough unsalted water to cover everything and bring to a simmer.


14. When the ditalini is done, add the pasta and its cooking water to the main pot.


15. Simmer until everything is soft, tasting for seasoning and adjusting as desired.

Notes

You could make this in one large pot but you’ll have to juggle what gets added when, so that the more delicate ingredients don’t turn to mush.

You don’t need to soak the beans overnight; not soaking them keeps more of the bean flavor in the cooking water, and that water is part of what gives the soup its flavor.

All salted cooking water (eventually) goes into the soup, for flavor and body, mainly from the starch from the beans and the pasta.

Go easy on the herbs as it’s easy to over-power the taste of the vegetables.

The quantities are fairly arbitrary; feel free to use more or less of anything, or to omit or substitute or add ingredients as you see fit.

You can cut down the cooking time by using more pots and cooking more things at the same time.

Rating

Difficulty:		Very easy
Time:		About 4 hours
Precision:		1

Source

Inspired by Food For Thought, by Robert Farrar Capon.