Recipe Root Vegetable Minestrone

TastyReuben

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Root Vegetable Minestrone
Serves 6

Ingredients
¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 onion (small finely chopped)
1 clove garlic (minced)
1 sprig rosemary (small)
2 carrots (sliced 1/4 inch thick)
2 parsnips (sliced 1/4 inch thick)
3 broccoli stems or 1 kohlrabi (peeled and sliced 1/4 inch thick)
1 pound butternut squash (3 cups cubed, peeled and cut into 3/4-inch dice)
6 cups low-sodium chicken broth
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
4 ounces angel hair pasta (broken into 1-inch lengths)
1 cup frozen baby lima beans
½ cup pecorino cheese (freshly grated, plus more for serving)

Directions
In a large Dutch oven or pot, heat 2 tablespoons of the olive oil. Add the onion, garlic and rosemary and cook over moderate heat until the onion is softened. Add the carrots, parsnips, broccoli stems and squash and cook for 1 minute. Add the broth, season with salt and pepper and simmer until the vegetables are nearly tender, about 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a medium skillet, heat the remaining 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Add the pasta and cook over moderately high heat, stirring frequently, until it is deeply golden, about 4 minutes.

Add the toasted pasta and the lima beans to the soup; cook until the pasta and vegetables are tender, 5 to 6 minutes. Discard the rosemary. Stir the cheese into the soup and serve, passing extra cheese at the table.

Recipe courtesy of Food & Wine (Grace Parisi)

NOTE: I made two substitutions with this recipe: 1) fideo pasta in place of the angel hair (hey, it's already broken up...no brainer!), and 2) sweet potato in place of the butternut squash, because of the two, I dislike sweet potato the least.

www.cookingbites.com/threads/the-cookingbites-recipe-challenge-root-vegetables.23933/page-4#post-295328


 
Oh, when I saw the photo of our mise en place I thought that there was Fava Beans in the Soup, that's how I have done it in the past, but then not one of my minestrone has ever been the same :chef:
Yep, those are baby lima beans, one of my favorites!
 
It looks lovely. I particularly like the use of broccoli stems (a much overlooked ingredient) alongside the root vegetables. You mentioned elsewhere that it was a rich tasting soup. I'd be inclined to substitute butter for some of the olive oil for an even richer taste!

These baby lima beans are not something that seem to be available here. I am presuming they are frozen? I love the older white butter beans (lima beans) and I'm curious how the young green ones taste. The nearest substitute here might be baby edamame (soya) beans or broad beans because they look similar.

I'm curious now. Are they actually baby butter beans?
 
It looks lovely. I particularly like the use of broccoli stems (a much overlooked ingredient) alongside the root vegetables.
Thanks. I never even thought about eating broccoli stems until several years ago, watching an episode of Jacques Pepin, and he said they tasted better to him than the florets, and I have to agree. Now when I buy broccoli, I get the longest stems I can find.

I'm curious now. Are they actually baby butter beans?
Beats me, they're just labeled lima beans, and they're what I know as lima beans from growing up:

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They're frozen, and there are also lima beans labeled as Fordhook lima beans, but those are bigger.

Lima beans and butter beans are two different things where I'm from. Lima beans are green, and butter beans are white, for a start, and they have a different taste - I'm trying to think of the right way to say it...maybe lima beans have more of a mineral taste? They're kind of more prominent, maybe, where butter beans are milder.

I love a big bowl of lima beans, covered in butter.
 
Lima beans and butter beans are two different things where I'm from. Lima beans are green, and butter beans are white, for a start, and they have a different taste - I'm trying to think of the right way to say it...maybe lima beans have more of a mineral taste? They're kind of more prominent, maybe, where butter beans are milder.

The thing is that when I look up lima beans it says they are the same as butter beans. The green ones are just the young fresh ones before they develop and are dried and look white.
 
... I'm beginning to think that lima beans are what we call broad beans. If so then they are very different from butter beans in the UK.
 
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