Marcella Hazan's White Bean Soup with Garlic and Parsley
Genius Recipes
Photo by Bobbi Lin
- Serves
- 4 to 6
How to cook a soulful bean soup in 10 minutes? As Marcella Hazan used to tell her students, "What you leave out is just as important as what you put in." Adapted slightly from The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking (Knopf, 1992).
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
- 1 teaspoon chopped garlic
- 6 cup cooked cannellini or other white beans—either canned or cooked from 2 cups dried (recommended)
- Salt
- Black pepper, ground fresh from the mill
- 1 cup homemade broth or water (or 1/3 cup canned beef stock diluted with 2/3 cup water)
- 2 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley
- Thick grilled or toasted slices of crusty bread (optional)
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Directions
- Step 1
Put the oil and chopped garlic in a soup pot and turn on the heat to medium. Cook the garlic, stirring it, until is becomes colored a very pale gold.
- Step 2
Add the drained cooked or canned beans, a pinch of salt, and a few grindings of pepper. Cover and simmer gently for 5 to 6 minutes.
- Step 3
Take about 1/2 cup of beans from the pot and puree them through a food mill back into the pot, together with all the broth. Alternately, use a blender, loosening with a bit of the broth. Simmer for another 5 to 6 minutes, taste, and correct for salt and pepper. Swirl in the chopped parsley, and turn off the heat.
- Step 4
Ladle over the grilled bread slices into individual soup bowls.