Spinach Soup

When I started writing A Serious Bunburyist, I penciled out a list of five favorite recipes that I wanted to cover: Fergus Henderson’s Beetroot, Red Onion, Red Cabbage, CrèmeFraîche and Chervil Salad; Richard Olney’s Potato and Leek Soup; and Paul Bertolli’s Cauliflower Soup. Another Bertolli soup made this short list, a Spinach Soup from his Chez Panisse Cooking [1988] with Alice Waters.

With autumn here—perhaps the best growing season for spinach, along with spring—it seems like the perfect time to finally enjoy this extraordinary soup. Bertolli writes “[t]his is one of the simplest and most economical soups I know of, and it takes very little time to make.” If you are quick with a knife, this soup goes from cutting board to table in 30 minutes. And nothing is lost to speed. To my taste, Bertolli’s Spinach Soup ranks as one of the most delicious soups in my entire cookbook collection. As a starter, Bertolli’s recipe serves 8.

4 tablespoons unsalted butter

5¼ cups water

1 large carrot (4 ounces), diced

1 stalk of celery (2½ ounces), diced

1 medium yellow onion (6 ounces), diced

3 bunches of spinach (1 pound, 2 ounces), de-stemmed, washed and drained

Salt and pepper

Melt the butter in a wide stainless-steel pot (at least 5-quart capacity). Add ¾ cup water and the carrot, celery, and onion. Cook at a low simmer, covered, for 20 minutes.

Add the remaining 4½ cups water and bring to a boil. Add the spinach and cook over high heat for 1 minute, stirring until all of the spinach is well wilted. Do not cover the pot: volatile acids, which are released when the vegetable is heated, will condense on the lid, fall back into the pot, and cause discoloration. Purée the entire mixture thoroughly in a blender, do not sieve, and transfer the soup immediately to a hot tureen. Season with salt and pepper to taste, garnish as desired, and serve immediately.

As to garnishes, Bertolli suggests a few options in his introduction to the recipe. Consider adding garlic butter or crème fraîche thinned to the soup’s consistency. Better yet, he writes, serve with “grated Parmesan, small buttered garlic croutons, and extra virgin olive oil drizzled over the surface.” Personally, I think this is all gild for the lily; I serve the soup without any embellishment.

A word or two on selecting and cleaning spinach: look for perky, fresh leaves with an intense green color. A good bunch will squeak when squeezed. Bertolli prefers a smooth-leaf spinach over the heavy, crinkle-leaf varieties, such as Bloomsdale, but writes that either type works well in this soup.

Take care washing fresh spinach, which often harbors sand and dirt. After stemming, place the leaves in a very large bowl filled with cold water and mix the spinach around with your hand. Wait a minute for any sand and dirt to drift away to the bowl’s bottom.  Then gently lift out the spinach so as not to disturb the settled grit. I typically repeat this process a couple more times especially if the spinach seems particularly dirty.

Finally, my dear editor suggested that I remind you to take care when blending hot liquids. I heed the counsel of the talented and scientifically-minded Heston Blumenthal. Heston Blumenthal at home [2011] describes how to liquefy soup: “The contents of the pan need to be transferred to the jug of the blender while still warm, as they’ll liquidize more efficiently like that. That said, no matter how eager you are to get the soup done, resist the urge to pour it into a blender while it’s still piping hot. If you put a hot liquid in the jug and close the lid, the heat can cause the air pressure to build to such an extent that, when you hit the switch, the soup forces its way out. So let it cool for a few minutes, then fill the jug no more than two-thirds full. Put on the lid but remove the small inner section, hold a folded tea-towel over the top, then press the button. Leave it for long enough that the contents are fully and evenly liquidized.” 

Abbotta Pezziende

The Encyclopedia of Pasta [2009] by Oretta Zanini De Vita contains 310 entries beginning with abbotta pezziende, a short, flat, rhombus-shaped pasta from Italy’s Abruzzo region. To make this shape, use a wooden rolling pin to roll out dough into a sheet of pasta. Then, after wrapping the pasta sheet around the pin, draw a knife down the pin’s length to slice the sheet into a pile of long, multi-layer strips. Cut the pile into narrow strips that measure about 4 cm/1.5-inches in width. With a bias cut, section the narrow strips into diamondesque-shaped pieces and you have abbotta pezziende.

Pictures help illustrate the process.

If you want to make a traditional version of this shape, Zanini De Vita writes that abbotta pezziende contains durum-flour, water and salt. As is the case with most traditional shapes, variations evolve overtime. I found contemporary recipes that call for equal parts durum and soft wheat flour; some of these recipes use whole eggs in place of water. I use a dough made with 100 grams Caputo tipo 00 flour, 100 grams Giusto’s Extra Fancy Durum flour, 2 medium whole eggs and a large pinch of salt. Depending upon the size of the eggs and other variations inherent in making fresh pasta (e.g., temperature, humidity, flour), you may need to add a bit of water to bring the dough together. After kneading for about 10 minutes, I wrap the dough in plastic to rest for about 30 minutes at room temperature.

Abbotta pezziende serves as a great introduction if you want to try making fresh pasta with a rolling pin because the shape is rather on the thick side (about 2mm, which is just a little thicker than a US Quarter). As for the hand rolling of the dough, I use the technique described in Marcella Hazan’s Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking [1992]. Don’t be discouraged if your first efforts fall short of success. Hand rolling pasta takes practice, but, once mastered, becomes a thing of beauty. Case in point, take a look at Eric Wolfinger’s short film of Thomas McNaughton of Flour + Water hand rolling pasta. The Ten Speed Press will publish their yet to be titled cookbook in the fall of 2014. Mark your calendar! (Update: Ten Speed published Flour + Water Pasta in September 2014.)

The one common thread you find when researching abbotta pezziende is its sauce: almost every source suggests dressing the pasta in a simple, soupy tomato sauce flavored with garlic, basil and pecorino cheese. I found variants that add chickpeas, lentils, fava beans and even asparagus. Guanciale occasionally shows up as an ingredient, too.

Spaghetti Quadri

After buying my Bottene torchio pasta press from Emiliomiti [here], I purchased a bronze die to make spaghetti quadri, a thin square noodle meant to resemble maccheroni alla chitarra, the traditional pasta of Abruzzo. To make authentic maccheroni alla chitarra, you roll a thick-ish sheet of egg pasta over closely spaced wires strung length-wise across a rectangular wooden box called a guitar (chitarra). In Italy Dish by Dish [2011], Monica Sartoni Cesari writes that maccheroni alla chitarra “is a relatively new shape—well, for Italy. It dates back to the middle of the nineteenth century. Before the invention of the chitarra,…the same shape was made by cutting the pasta with a shoemaker’s hammer (rintrocilo).”

What a spaghetti quadri die lacks in character when compared to a shoemaker’s hammer or a zither-like box, it makes up in efficiency: attach bronze die to torchio and add dough; insert and screw down piston; harvest square spaghetti.  Pretty simple in concept, but the key to success lies in the dough. Before settling on the recipe, below, I had a good number of misses with this die. Looking back on my notes, I think the problems stemmed from my (1) flour blend, and (2) liquid-to-flour ratio. (Not much left to get wrong, I’d say.…) I finally succeeded after pushing the dough closer to the sandy consistency of a machine-extruded dough. After hydrating, this resulted in a very dry and hard dough that produced a pasta with a firm bite. Here’s the recipe that I use to make spaghetti quadri.

125 grams Giusto’s Extra Fancy Durum flour

125 grams Central Milling 00 Pizza flour

2 grams kosher salt

125 grams egg mixture (2 whole medium eggs plus 1 medium egg yolk. If the eggs/yolk weigh less than 125 grams, add water to make up difference; if the eggs/yolk weighs more, remove the overage.)

1. In a stand mixer fitted with its paddle attachment, mix together the flours and salt. In a glass, beat the egg mixture.

2. With the mixer running on low speed, slowly pour the egg mixture into the mixing bowl. Mix the dough for about 2 minutes. The dough should be crumbly, but still slightly damp and should hold together if tightly squeezed.

3. Remove the bowl from the mixer and add any dough on the paddle to the mixing bowl. Using your hand, bring the dough together into a large ball in the mixing bowl. Place the dough onto a sheet of plastic wrap and flatten the dough into a disc. If the dough crumbles a bit, don’t worry: tightly wrap the dough with the plastic wrap so that it holds its shape. As the dough rests, it will hydrate and come together. Leave the dough to rest at room temperature for 1 hour.

4. Attach the torchio to a work surface and insert the spaghetti quadri die. Unwrap the dough and lightly dust it with flour. Roll the dough into a thick cylinder and slide this into the torchio’s chamber. Insert the torchio’s piston into the machine’s chamber and turn the torchio’s handle—this will take some effort—until the pasta extrudes from the die. Cut the spaghetti quadri into approximately 12-inch long pieces, lightly dust with flour and place on a baking tray covered with semolina. Continue turning and cutting until the dough runs out. You will have enough pasta to serve 4 as a starter or 3 as a main course.

To cook the pasta, bring a large pot of salted water to the boil. Add the fresh spaghetti quadri, stir the pasta and when the water returns to the boil, cook for approximately 2 to 3 minutes. Taste to determine if the pasta is ready. If so, drain and add the pasta to your ready sauce, mix the two together and cook the pasta and sauce for 1 to 2 minutes.

Don’t be surprised if nearly every regional Italian cookbook you consult suggests serving this pasta shape with a lamb and pepper ragù.  It’s a classic pairing worth trying. This pasta also tastes delicious with a simple light tomato sauce spiked with hot pepper.