Alma's cooked water soup
Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Vegetarian recipes from recently released cookbooks:

"Lidia's Italy," by Lidia Matticchio Bastianich (Alfred A. Knopf, 2007)
Image courtesy of bn.com


After visiting old family homes, marketplaces and even country home kitchens, Lidia Matticchio Bastianich dishes up a gastronomic tour of her native Italy. Instructions for hand-made pastas and unusual vegetable combinations will be of interest to everyone, vegetarians included. Each regional chapter ends with an art history guide written by Bastianich's daughter Tanya Bastianich Manuali.

-- Evelyn Shih

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Alma's cooked water soup

2 pounds swiss chard
1 onion, chopped (about 1 cup)
2 celery stalks, trimmed, peeled and cut into chunks (about 1½ cups)
1/3 cup fresh Italian parsley leaves
8 fresh basil leaves
1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
½ teaspoon peperoncino flakes, or to taste
1 tablespoon tomato paste
9 cups water
2 teaspoons salt, or to taste
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, or to taste
6 eggs
3 slices of day-old country bread, or 18 to 24 large croutons
Pecorino Romano cheese for serving

Image courtesy of e-rcps.com

Wash and drain the chard, and tear out the long stems from the leafy parts. Stack the leaves and slice crosswise into 1-inch strips. Cut off the rough base of each stem and discard. Chop the trimmed stems into ½-inch pieces.

Using a food processor, mince the onion, celery, parsley and basil into a fine-textured paste. Heat the oil in the sauce-pan over medium heat, scrape in the paste and stir it all around the pan as it starts to steam and sizzle. Sprinkle in the peperoncino and cook, stirring, until the paste has dried and starts to stick, about 4 minutes. Drop in the tomato paste, and stir to toast it for a minute.

Pour in 9 cups water, raise the heat to high, and stir up all the cooked seasonings, while adding 2 teaspoons of salt and some freshly ground pepper to taste. Bring the water to boil, and dump in all of the cut chard leaves and chopped stems. Return to a boil, cover partially, and simmer for about 40 minutes, until the chard is very tender and the broth is flavorful. Turn off the heat until you're ready to serve.

Ladle about 11/3 cups of soup per serving into the skillet. Heat to a simmer; crack and carefully slip into the soup one egg for each serving. Turn the heat down very low, cover the skillet tightly, and poach the eggs for 2 minutes or longer. Put a bread slice or croutons in each warm soup bowl and lay the egg and greens on the bread using a slot spoon or spatula. Ladle in hot broth to cover. Serve immediately with cheese.

Servings: 6.


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