Recipe: Quick Tuscan Bean Soup

You can't beat slow food for flavour - but for days when you're in a hurry, here's my quick and easy version of a classic Tuscan soup. It's even better the day after.

The people in Tuscany use beans in so many dishes that they’re nicknamed mangiafagioli – or ‘bean eaters’ by other Italians. This quick and easy but hearty, filling soup is almost a meal in itself – especially when eaten with thick, crusty bread.

Ingredients

• 1 onion – chopped (I prefer red)
• 1 or 2 cloves of garlic (to taste)
• 1 large stick of celery - chopped
• Handful of white mushrooms - washed and rougly chopped
• 1 can (approx 410 gram can) cooked cannellini (white) or borlotti beans
• 1 can (approx 400 gram can) chopped plum tomatoes
• olive oil
• tomato paste
• large handful of fresh basil
• pinch of dried oregano
• Around 1/2 litre of freshly boiled water

Method

1. Cover the bottom of a saucepan with olive oil (vary amount to your taste). Then sauté the chopped onion until it’s golden brown. Add the chopped celery and mushrooms and sauté them too.
2. When that has softened, add the can of chopped tomatoes - and a spoonful or a generous squirt of tomato paste (vary amount to your taste) - then crush the garlic cloves and add them too.
3. Let it come up to the boil, turn down the heat, add the canned beans, stir them in and let the soup simmer away. As it starts to thicken, add the water gradually – if you want a thinner soup, add more. Season with black pepper - and salt if you wish - and simmer for around 30 minutes. Then tear the fresh basil leaves and add to the soup, together with the dried oregano. Simmer for another 30 minutes.
4. Serve drizzled with olive oil, a sprinkling of grated parmesan – and a hunk of crusty bread.

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