Minestrone alla Milanese with Roasted Tomato and Balsamic Relish and Crostini
Assemble your ingredients for the soup:
-1/2 pound of hot italian sausage (you can use prosciutto, salt pork, bacon, or any number of other cured pork products for this in place of the sausage)
-1/2 pound elbow macaroni
-Lots and lots of assorted veggies (I used sweet onion, celery, carrot, cremini mushrooms, garlic, and bell pepper)
-One carton vegetable broth and one carton chicken broth (homemade would be better, but I don't cook many whole chickens so I didn't have any bones laying around to make stock or broth with)
-28.8 ounces (two small cans) of chopped tomatoes with juice (San Marzano if you can get it)
-Small can of garbanzo beans
-Large can of white kidney beans
-Dried oregano/basil/parsley
-Dried red pepper flakes
-Spring of fresh rosemary
-Olive oil
-Salt
-Pepper
As for the crotini and relish:
-One loaf crusty french or italian bread, cut on the bias
-Olive oil
-Sea salt
-Pepper
-Four medium tomatoes
-Four whole garlic cloves
-Balsamic vinaigrette (homemade is best, of course)
-Fresh basil (cut into a thin chiffonade)
Directions for the relish and crostini:
Drizzle three of your four tomatoes as well as your garlic cloves with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast in a 500 degree oven until soft. Remove the skin from the tomatoes after allowing them to cool, and try to get out as many of the seeds as possible. Chop the tomatoes and thinly slice the garlic, then set aside.
Chop your other tomato, removing your seeds first, and toss it in your bowl with the roasted tomatoes and garlic. Your chiffonade of basil goes in next, then pour on the balsamic vinaigrette and sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste.
For the crostini, simply brush the slices of bread with olive oil and either grill or broil them until crispy and browned. Sprinkle with sea salt and black pepper and serve with the relish.
Directions for the soup:
I'm going to let the pictures walk you through this for the most part. It's really pretty simple. First step is to take your sausage out of its casing and brown it in a large stock pot. Take it out, drain it, and set it aside. Sweat your carrots/celery first until just about tender, then add your other aromatics and veggies and cook until just tender with a bit of olive oil if there isn't enough fat left over from the sausage and salt/pepper. Toss in your rinsed, drained beans after this.
(A note on the beans: obviously, it would be best if you used dry beans that you cooked yourself, but not everybody has several hours to devote to this, and frankly, you're not going to notice that much of a difference.)
After this, throw in the reserved sausage, tomatoes, herbs, red pepper flakes, and broth. Let this cook for as long as you can possibly wait with the lid on. When you're close to serving time, go ahead and crank up the heat to medium high and throw in your elbow macaroni. Cook until al dente, remove your rosemary sprig, season with salt and pepper to taste, then serve.
This ain't exactly photo shoot material, but it sure is good.
Enjoy