Ribollita

Ingredients

• 2 tins of cannellini beans
• 300 g cavolo nero or kale, stems stripped
• 250 g stale sourdough, torn into chunks
• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 carrots, diced
• 2 celery sticks, diced
• 4 garlic cloves, sliced
• 90 ml olive oil, plus more to serve
• 1 tin of chopped tomatoes
• 1 litre vegetable stock
• a sprig of rosemary
• 1 tsp chilli flakes

Method

1. Sweat the base slowly

   Cook the onion, carrot and celery in half the oil over a low heat for a full 20 minutes until completely soft. This is a soup of cheap ingredients, so the only place flavour comes from is patience here.

   20 min

2. Garlic and aromatics

   Add the garlic, rosemary and chilli and cook for two minutes more.

   2 min

3. Mash some beans

   Add the tomatoes, stock and the beans with their liquid, then crush about a third of the beans against the side of the pan. That starch is what gives ribollita its thick, almost porridgey body.

   20 min

4. Add the greens

   Stir in the kale and simmer until it is completely tender — 15 minutes, not the two you would give spinach. Cavolo nero is tough and wants to be soft here, not bright.

   15 min

5. Bread in, off the heat

   Stir the torn bread through, take it off the heat, and leave it 20 minutes. The name means 'reboiled': the bread dissolving into the broth is the dish, which is why it must be stale rather than fresh.

   20 min

6. Serve with oil

   Reheat gently and serve with a hard pour of good olive oil over each bowl. It is genuinely better the next day, when it thickens enough to stand a spoon in.