Recipe - Zuppa Di Verdura Stufata (Summer Minestrone)

1 pound Eggplant (1 or 2 small
eggplants)
Sea salt
1 lg Or 2 medium potatoes
1 md Carrot
2 md Red or yellow bell peppers
One fourth cup Extra virgin olive oil, plus
a little more for garnish
1 md Onion, coarsely chopped
1 Stalk celery, chopped in
1inch lengths
One half pound (1 bunch) fresh green or red
chard, thinly cut or sliced up
One half pound Green beans, cut or sliced up in
1inch lengths
5 Ripe red tomatoes, peeled
and coarsely chopped , (up
to 6)
2 md Zucchini, cubed
One half cup Coarsely chopped flatleaf
parsley
3 Sprigs fresh oregano, (3 to
4)
1 Bay leaf
1 Sprig fresh rosemary
1 small Dried hot red chile pepper,
if desired

Cut the eggplant in 1inch cubes. Place the cubes in a colander, sprinkling
them liberally with salt. Weigh the eggplant with a can set on a small
plate and set the colander in the sink to drain for at least 1 hour. Then
rinse the cubes thoroughly and pat dry with paper towels.

Cut the potatoes and carrot into cubes the same size as the eggplant. Cut
the peppers in half lengthwise, discard the seeds and inner white
membranes, and slice thinly.

Add the oil to a big heavy saucepan or rondeau large enough to hold all the
vegetables and place over mediumhigh heat. Quickly saute the eggplant and
potato cubes for about 5 minutes, or until they just start to brown along
the edges. Stir in the onion and celery, lower the heat to mediumlow, and
continue cooking and stirring until the onion softens and starts to turn
golden. Add the carrot, chard, green beans, and peppers and stir to combine
everything well.

Add One half cup hot water to the vegetables in the pan, cover, and cook
together for about 5 minutes, then stir in the chopped tomatoes, zucchini,
and the aromatics, together with the hot pepper if desired. Add a pinch of
salt, cover tightly, and cook for 30 minutes, adding a very little water
from time to time if necessary. Remove oregano sprigs, bay leaf, and
rosemary sprig before serving. Garnish each serving with a thin drizzle of
olive oil.

Stufata means a cooking technique similar to a braise, in which the
ingredients are cooked in little or no water; the juices from the
vegetables themselves serve to give the soup its requisite "soupiness."
This makes a very thick soup that should be served immediately, otherwise
the vegetables absorb the small amount of liquid and it becomes more like a
ciambotta, still delicious but no longer really a soup.

Excerpted from FLAVORS OF PUGLIA, by Nancy Harmon Jenkins. Copyright © 1997
by Nancy Harmon Jenkins. Excerpted by permission of Broadway Books, a
division of the Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. All rights
reserved.

Recipe by: FLAVORS OF PUGLIA, by Nancy Harmon Jenkins Posted to MCRecipe
Digest V1 #667 by Rooby MsRooby@sprintmail.com on Jul 12, 1997