Bean and Escarole Soup (or Crostini)

Rating: 4.2/5. From 21 votes.
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Bean and Escarole Soup

You can serve small quantities of this Tuscan bean dish on crostini, as an appetizer, or larger quantities as a hearty soup.

  • Prep Time: 0 hours
  • Cook Time: 0 hours
  • Total Time: 2 hours
  • Yield: 6

Ingredients

  • 300g (10 oz) cooked cannellini or borlotti beans and the water they were cooked in
  • 1 head escarole (or another curly bitter lettuce)
  • 2 cloves garlic
  • 2 small chilli peppers
  • Olive oil

Instructions

  1. Boil the lettuce in plenty of boiling, salted water. Squeeze the water out, and chop it finely.
  2. Stir fry the garlic (whole) and the chilli peppers in a good swoosh of olive oil.
  3. Add the cooked lettuce and cook for a little while, so that the lettuce takes on the flavours of the oil.
  4. Add the cooked beans and 2 cups of the water they were cooked in. Cook on a low flame for 10-15 minutes.
  5. Serve with warm bread or toast, rubbed with raw garlic.

Notes

To cook the beans, soak overnight in plenty of cold water. Discard this water and cook on a low heat for approximately an hour and a half, until tender.
Cooking with pieces of kombu seaweed improves the digestibility of legumes/pulses.

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