It’s been said that you can tell where you are in Italy by tasting the ingredients of bowl of a minestrone, Italy’s storied vegetable soup. This particular recipe, Minestrone Milanese, comes from the north because it contains rice. Most other regions of Italy add pasta to the soup.
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Like so many other Italian recipes, pasta e fagioli (pasta and beans) started out life as a meatless peasant dish: cucina povera. It is hearty fare and like many cucina povera dishes, quite delicious.
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What’s nice about this soup is that it’s quick and easy to make and really tasty. Especially with the zesty lemon flavor. Lemon chicken orzo soup is actually a meal in itself: vegetables, meat and carbs, glorious carbs! Plus, somebody else has cooked the chicken for you!
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Stracciatella has been called “the most Roman of soups” although just about every region in Italy has its version. Stracciatella means “little rags” because that’s what the eggs look like when they’re swirled into boiling broth. [Although that’s what the water looked like the first time I boiled my home-made potato gnocchi.] Traditionally, other ingredients tossed into the soup include bread crumbs, parmesan cheese and grated lemon peel.
I call this recipe “Stracciatella…with benefits” because it includes chicken and vegetables. This is a great recipe if you have kids because it’s a meal in a pot. Just serve it with a sliced baguette and you’re in business. This was the first dish served to my two daughters where they would actually eat spinach. I think they had to eat the spinach to get to the chicken.
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Let me introduce you to smooth and creamy chestnut soup. This version is more like a bisque, dressed up with butter, cream and a little booze. But I know, I know. It’s brown. You can dress it up, with chopped green onions and crème fraîche, I’ve done here, and talk it up as I’m doing now. But at the end of the day, this soup is still brown. But still good! Made with chestnut purée which I’ll talk about below. And also made with butter and cream. But first…
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