My favourite ribollita (La mia ribollita preferita)
There's often confusion as to what ribollita should actually be like. It's not like minestrone, as it isn't brothy and it has no pasta in it. It's actually more like pappa al pomodoro, as it's thick and based on bread. It's very much Italian 'peasant food' and would have been eaten a lot in the days of no central heating and lots of hard manual labour. I think this recipe embraces the heart and soul of what peasant cooking is all about – cheap, tasty power food. Please do make it and reheat it the next day – you'll find the flavours intensify.
Estimated Nutrition (whole recipe, rough)
Counts 13 of 15 ingredients — the other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and contribute nothing above, so the real totals are higher.
What these numbers assume — 13 portions →
| Ingredient | Portion assumed | kcal |
|---|---|---|
| Flour | 1 cup (125g) all-purpose | 455 |
| Potato | 1 medium (173g) baked | 161 |
| Olive Oil | 1 tbsp (14g) | 119 |
| Red Onion | 1 medium (110g) | 44 |
| Plum | 1 medium (66g) | 30 |
| Fennel | 1/2 bulb (87g) | 27 |
| Carrot | 1 medium (61g) | 25 |
| Tomato | 1 medium (123g) | 22 |
| Celery | 1 stalk (40g) | 6 |
| Black Pepper | 1 tsp ground (2.3g) | 6 |
| Garlic | 1 clove (3g) | 4 |
| Bay Leaf | 1 leaf (0.6g) | 2 |
| Salt | 1 tsp (6g) | 0 |
| Cannellini Bean | not in our table | 0 |
| Seed | not in our table | 0 |
Totals for the whole recipe, adding one typical portion per ingredient — listed above. Quantities in the recipe are not counted, so this is a rough guide only — not suitable for medical or dietary planning.
Ingredients
- 310 g zolfini or cannellini beans, fresh, or dried and soaked overnight
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 tomato, squashed
- 1 small potato, peeled
- 2 small red onions, peeled
- 2 carrots, peeled
- 3 sticks celery, trimmed
- 3 cloves garlic, peeled
- olive oil
- 1 pinch ground fennel seeds
- 1 pinch dried red chilli
- 400 g good-quality tinned plum tomatoes
- 310 g cavolo nero, leaves and stalks finely sliced
- 2 large handfuls good-quality stale bread, torn into chunks
- sea salt
- freshly ground black pepper
- extra virgin olive oil