The Best Dish I Have Ever Made

New York weather can go either way in the fall - crisp and sunny, a perfect day for a stroll through Central Park with some apple cider and a friend, or rainy and cold and gross, perfect for hiding under a rock.

With soup.

Which is why yesterday, when I read the Food52 celebration of Ribollita, I knew exactly what dinner would be - even if it did mean an hour of cooking for one.  {Incidentally, if you don’t know soup is infinitely better homemade, this will be the soup that teaches you that.}

Ribollita literally means “twice boiled,” because it’s essentially a minestrone that, in its second-day reincarnation, has been boiled again and poured over bread.  That sounds really simple, so you’d be shocked that, like chili, minestrone is incredibly better the next day. 

Food52’s recipe is very simple - veggies, kale, tomatoes - but I made mine a little more complex.  First, I wanted to put a meat in there to give it that extra feeling-like-I’m-coming-down-with-something heartiness, and also, because I think tastes like this are explicitly made for sausage.  I also added more spices, because I like my soups extra delicious and good to eat for a week.  So, with little ado, Ribollotta Leftovers:

SERVES 6 or you for a week 3 tablespoons olive oil 1 tablespoon butter (salt free) 5 cloves garlic, thinly sliced 1 onion, chopped 1/4 teaspoon crushed red chili pepper flakes 1 carrot, chopped 1 rib of celery, chopped 1 cup of red wine in your hand, with a little more for dashing 28 ounces (1 can) plum tomatoes 2 hot italian sausages (out of casing) 1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves 1 tablespoon paprika 1 tablespoon cayenne pepper 1 potato, peeled and diced 1 pound cavolo nero, or any other variety of kale, trimmed and chopped into bite sized pieces 15 ounces (1 can) cannellini beans 4-6 thick slices of country bread, torn into pieces 4 cups water

Heat olive oil in a large, heavy-bottomed soup pot or Dutch oven over medium heat. Add garlic, onion, and crushed red chili pepper flakes. Sweat the onions until translucent, about 5 minutes.

Also, if you didn’t know this, nice tip: lighting a candle in front of your face while chopping onions actually makes the whole process less tear-inducing.

Also, it’s a great reason to swipe one of your mother’s brass candlesticks and make sure it lives in your kitchen.

Toss in the carrot and celery with a pinch of salt and the butter and sweat the vegetables 10 minutes.

Mmmm, delicious vegetables.

As these sweat, throw in some of that red wine from your cup (a great excuse to pour yourself another) and the sausage.  I squeeze my sausage out of the casing and then smash it around in the mirepoix for awhile, but there’s got to be a more technical way to do it.

Meanwhile, trim the hard stem ends off the tomatoes and discard. Crush the tomatoes with your hands.  I found this was easiest to do by pouring the whole can into a big bowl, smashing the hard ends off with my hands, and mixing the rest of it up.  It also is totally kid-safe fun and reminded me a lot of prepping the meat for meatloaf as a child.

Pour the tomatoes (and their juices) into the pot with the thyme, paprika, cayenne, potato, and 3 cups water. Bring the soup to a simmer, turn the heat down and partially cover with the lid. Keep the soup at a low simmer for about 20 minutes.  

Toss in the kale with another cup of water, a pinch of salt and some freshly ground pepper. Partially cover the pot and simmer for 10 minutes.

I’m not going to lie, here: I tasted this broth, found it a little lacking and knew the perfect fix.  Cover your ears, health nuts: a tiny drip of bacon fat.  Seriously, a little goes a long way: and it added Just. The. Right. Thing.  Salty fatty deliciousness.  And it’s soup, after all, based on mostly kale and tomatoes.  I’m pretty sure it’s an okay departure from the standard recipe.

Add the canned beans and continue to simmer the soup 5 more minutes.

Now you’re basically done.  I threw some parm in here - you can even cook it with a parm heel (which I didn’t have because I did that to something else last week) and it’s supposed to be marvelous - but now get your bowl out and your bread ready.  I was using crusty old seven-grain baguette, and I rubbed each piece with a little garlic and then throw it in my bowl.  I poured the soup on top, added more parm, and then more bread and a dollop of goat cheese on top.

I then professed undying love and told Bill I’m sorry I found something I love more than I love him.  Checkmate: I’d love it even more with him.