Hearty white bean soup

Back trackin'

When I started this blog so many years ago, my boys were 7 and 9. The trick was to find pretty simple meals that they'd love (or at least like enough to try new things). Now that are 17 and 19 and gigantic! Which I suppose means the meals were ok. Now the question is - how to fill those bottomless bellies?

This is a tasty, filling soup or stew that works great as a lunch, side or main.

If I’m ladling over pasta, I have it more as a stew and reduce the water by 2 cups. If I’m serving it with crusty bread and a salad, the consistency I like is more like a soup.

If I were to do a vegetarian version, I’d chop and sauté a turnip, then remove and add it back in again with the chopped kale.

In this pic, I didn’t have any feta in the fridge, so used pecorino instead. This is an Italian dish, so black pepper would be more authentic I guess, but I like white pepper here.

Ingredients 

2 cups (375g) dry cannellini beans
4 cups water (for soaking)
2 or 3 Italian pork sausages with garlic and fennel, bratwurst also works well
2 chopped brown onions
2 cloves chopped garlic (reduce if your sausages have lots of garlic)
⅓ cup dry white wine
1 teaspoon freshly ground white pepper
¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 bay leaf
2 cups veggie or chicken stock
6 (or 8) cups water
1 teaspoon salt, plus more to taste
4 cups chopped kale (or other leafy green)
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, or to taste

To serve

Crumbled feta
A few pinches red chilli flakes
A few splashes of balsamic vinegar 
Chopped parsley

Method

1. Soak beans in cold water overnight.

2. Drain beans (retaining the liquid) and set aside.

3. Make a cut down the center of each sausage and peel off the casing. Transfer sausage into a dry, cold, 4 litre soup pot. Turn the heat to medium-low. You want to render out the fat. Once it starts to sizzle, raise the heat to medium and brown the sausage, breaking it up into small pieces with a wooden spoon, 5 to 7 minutes. Cook and stir until juices start to caramelise and stick to the bottom of the pan, creating a fond, 3 to 5 minutes.

4. Add onion and garlic and stir to coat in the rendered sausage fat. Add a little olive oil if necessary. Cook until onion starts to turn translucent, about 5 minutes. Add white wine to deglaze the pot. Add black pepper, dried chillies, bay leaf, and water.

5. Add drained beans, increase heat to high, and bring to a boil. Once boiling, reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for 30 minutes. Add salt and continue to simmer until beans are tender, about 30 more minutes. Taste beans to be certain they are perfectly cooked.

6. Smash about 1/4 of the beans with a potato masher to give the soup a creamy texture. Stir in chopped kale, increase heat to medium, and cook until tender, 10 to 15 minutes. The time will depend and the greens you choose. If you choose English spinach, for instance, this can be done one minute before serving. Taste and adjust salt.

7. Ladle hot soup into bowls, drizzle with olive oil, and sprinkle with feta and a pinch of chilli flakes and chopped parsley.