Sunday, January 31, 2010

Rosemary White Bean Soup

This recipe is from Ina Garten's Barefoot Contessa cookbook. This is a hearty, healthy and yummy soup.......perfect for late fall or winter.

1 pound dried white cannelini beans
4 c sliced yellow onions
1/4 c. olive oil
2 minced garlic cloves
1 large branch fresh rosemary (6 to 7 inches)
1 bay leaf
2 quarts chicken stock
2 tsp. kosher salt
1 tsp. ground pepper

Cover beans with water by at least 1 inch and refrigerate hours or overnight; drain.

In a large stockpot over low to medium heat, saute the onions with the olive oil until the onions are translucent, 10 to 15 minutes. Add the garlic and cook over low heat for 3 more minutes. Add the beans, rosemary, chicken stock and bay leaf. Cover, bring to a boil and simmer for 30-40 minutes, until the beans are very soft. Remove the rosemary branch and the bay leaf. Puree the soup in the food processeor until coarsely pureed. Return the soup to the pot to reheat and add salt and pepper to taste.

One helpful hint from the book - do not salt the beans until after they are cooked, if you salt before they are cooked through, they become tough. Hope you all enjoy this soup!!! We really loved it, it is very hearty and has such a great flavor to it!

My Notes

I found soaking the beans overnight necessary and I simmered the soup 90 minutes so that the beans were soft enough to use the immersion blender. Also added five cloves of garlic vs. the two and added carrots and celery (including the leaves) along with the onions when sauteing.

Soup simmering:

After using immersion blender:

Ready to eat:

Served with fresh foccacia bread and an antipasto:

1 comment:

  1. Oh my, this looks awesome and so doesn't the antipasto platter.

    ReplyDelete