The ribollita

Villa Ducci is a hotel with restaurant in San Gimignano that offers typical dishes of Tuscan cuisine. Every taste and smell is enhanced by carefully chosen fresh products.
Today we want to present the recipe for ribollita, a typical Tuscan dish.

Origins of the ribollita

The ribollita dates back to the Middle Ages. The bread that was left over to the nobles was given to the servants and cooked together with the vegetables, boiling it until you had a hearty soup. This is why it has always been considered a poor dish but still today this dish is part of home cooking.

Ingredients

Ingredients for beans:
Dried cannellini beans 350 g
Water 2 l
Black pepper to taste
Extra virgin olive oil 20 g
Salt up to taste
1 clove garlic
1 sprig rosemary

Ingredients for soup:
Cabbage 250 g
Beets 300 g
Black cabbage 300 g
Peeled tomatoes 180 g
Stale bread 220 g
Extra virgin olive oil 25 g
Potatoes 1
Carrots 80 g
Onions 80 g
Celery 100 g
Fresh thyme to taste
Salt up to taste
Black pepper to taste
Dried chilli pepper to taste

Recipe

Start cooking the cannellini beans: soak them in a bowl full of water for about 24 hours. Then heat the olive oil, garlic and rosemary in a pan and add the drained beans. Cover with water and cook for 1 hour over medium-low heat with lid. Add salt and pepper when cooked.
Part of the beans must now be removed and set aside. The rest, on the other hand, must be blended.
At this point the sauté: chop onion, celery and carrots (small cubes). Heat the oil in a pan (25g) and fry everything. in the meantime, peel the potato and cut it into cubes. Also add this to the sauté and continue cooking.
Pour the peeled tomatoes into a bowl and mash them with a fork, then add them to the pan with the other vegetables. Also add the cabbage (cut into julienne strips), chard, black cabbage and savoy cabbage. Now you can pour in the already blended bean broth, mix and bring to the boil. When the soup is boiling, it should be cooked for another 45 minutes without a lid, stirring occasionally. At the end of the regular cooking of salt and pepper, add the remaining whole beans, stir and turn off the heat.
Now cut the stale bread into slices, placing some in the bottom of a bowl and cover with a couple of ladles of soup. Put another layer of bread and cover with more soup. Continue until the ingredients are finished. Allow to cool and then place everything in the refrigerator with cling film for at least 2 hours.
Ready! Now it can be heated, poured into a pan and enjoyed! Usually a drizzle of raw oil and chilli is put.

You may also be interested in: The Tuscan Tomato Soup