Jamie's Minestrone Autunno

The translation of this soup is Early Autumn Minestrone so if you're making this around March/April, you'll find a natural bounty of these ingredients at your local supermarket, at good prices too. It is a beautiful soup, no question about it. It's got a lot of ingredients as you would expect of a minestrone but they're not wanky or excessive for the sake of it - as I mentioned, they're all things you'll easily find at your local supermarket and they all contribute great flavours. My husband and I enjoyed this hearty lunch with a very Aussie addition of a golden ham and cheese toastie on the side and gosh, I felt like I was sitting at the richest table on earth.

Ingredients:
200g cannellini or borlotti beans, dried and soaked overnight
1 bay leaf
1 tomato, squashed
1 small potato, peeled
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
olive oil
4 slices pancetta, diced
2 small red onions, peeled and finely chopped
2 carrots, peeled and chopped
2 sticks of celery, trimmed and chopped
1/2 head fennel, chopped (I use the whole fennel as it otherwise goes to waste)
3 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped
small bunch of basil, leaves and stems separated
3 x 400g cans of plum tomatoes
2 small zucchini, quartered and sliced
1.5 metric cups red wine
350g Swiss chard or spinach, washed and roughly sliced, including stalks
6 cups chicken stock
Any soup-friendly pasta, cooked separately and added when serving
sugar, salt and pepper to taste
extra virgin olive oil, to serve
parmesan cheese, to serve

Method:
1. Add your dried and soaked beans to a pan of water with the bay leaf, squashed tomato and potato. Cook until tender (roughly an hour for soaked beans). They must be soft. Drain (reserve a mug of cooking liquid) and discard the bay leaf, tomato and potato. Season with salt, pepper and a splash of olive oil.
2. While the beans are cooking, make your soffrito. Heat a good splash of olive oil in a saucepan and add the chopped pancetta, onions, carrots, celery, fennel, garlic and finely sliced basil stems. Sweat very slowly on a low heat, with the lid just ajar for around 15-20minutes until soft, but not brown. Add the tomatoes, zucchini, and red wine and simmer gently for 15minutes.
3. Add stock and reserved cooking water, stir well and simmer very gently for an hour.

4. Now add the chard and beans and keep on the heat a further 10minutes. Then taste and season with salt and pepper. Serve sprinkled with torn basil leaves, parmesan and a little extra virgin olive oil drizzled on top.

Enjoy - so delicious!

Also, my homemade chicken stock from the freezer goes great with this. Adds the healthy and hearty flavour you want for this dish.

Serves 10

**Jamie's Italy page 66**