Minestrone Soup

Minestrone literally means big soup.  It is a thick soup of Italian origin made with seasonal vegetables by adding pasta or some other carbohydrate to make it more substantial. Common ingredients include beans, zucchini, onions, squash, celery, carrots, tomatoes and stock. There is no specific recipe for this soup as it varies from family to family. But one thing is common it is always made with seasonal vegetables.  It can be vegetarian as well as non vegetarian. In case of non-vegetarian soup, chicken broth is added while vegetable broth is used for vegetarian minestrone.  However, in Roman times the base of minestrone used to be bean broth.  Minestrone is one of the cornerstones of Italian cuisine and is almost as common as pasta or pizza.

As I was traveling North America for last two months, I discovered everyone in my family was a good cook.  In fact everyone made some or other dish with finesse and the result was very satisfying.  The Minestrone soup was made excellent by my sister in law.  She did not mind me sharing this recipe with the world.

Ingredients:

1 big onion, 1 big carrot, 1 stick of celery,  12 green beans, 1 whole zucchini, 3 tomatoes, 2 cloves of garlic, ½ bell pepper(optional), ¼ cup chopped parsley, ¼ cup pasta or barley,  1 bullion cube, 2 cups of vegetable stock, ½  tsp of pickling spices, ¼ tsp red pepper flakes,  1 tbsp olive oil

Method:

Heat oil in a big pan, put pickling spices, red pepper flakes and add chopped onion, chopped celery, carrots and crushed garlic.

Sauté these vegetables but make sure they do not turn brown.

Add green beans, one cube of bullion and vegetable stock.

If you want to add barley do it now but if you want to add pasta make sure that you boil the pasta and keep it aside.  Add pasta at the end so that it tastes better.

Let it simmer for a five-seven minutes and then add zucchini and bell pepper towards the end so that they do not turn mushy. Now give it a boil and then reduce heat and let it simmer for 10-15 minutes.

Add chopped parsley and let it simmer for a couple of  minutes more.

Enjoy your soup with Italian bread dipped into extra virgin olive oil.

(Note: Pickling spice consists of bay leaf, black pepper, coriander seeds, fenugreek and dill seeds).