“There is something about seasonal cooking that is so special,” says Julia Busuttil Nishimura. “New-season garlic sits next to the first of the asparagus and artichokes, inspiring this recipe. And making this with the doors flung open on the first sunny day of spring is rather lovely.
“This minestra is very similar to garmugia, a spring soup from Lucca in Tuscany, where ground veal or beef and toasted bread make an appearance. Here I forgo the extra meat and add a small amount of gnocchetti Sardi, a small gnocchi-shaped pasta from Sardegna, which adds a lovely texture. I add water, not stock – the vegetables and pancetta are so flavourful and I like tasting them – but if you want your soup to be a bit richer, you could use stock, or half and half as I often do when stock is called for. Sometimes I make a quick stock with the broad bean and pea pods and asparagus ends, which only adds to the spring flavour.
“I’ve made this soup plenty of times with frozen peas and broad beans, and that is more than fine. If you don’t want to prepare your own artichokes, you can buy them frozen, already cleaned and prepared, too.”
Ingredients
- 1 leek, white and light green part, halved lengthways and finely sliced
- 100g pancetta, cut into lardons
- 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus extra for drizzling
- sea salt
- 4 garlic cloves (new season spring, if possible), roughly chopped
- 1 nicola or Dutch cream potato, halved and sliced into 1 cm pieces
- 2 freshly prepared artichoke hearts, halved and finely sliced
- 1 fresh bay leaf
- 100g gnocchetti sardi or other small pasta of your choice
- 150g podded broad beans
- 150g fresh or frozen peas
- 200g asparagus, woody ends discarded, cut into coins, tips halved lengthways
- large handful of parsley leaves, roughly chopped
- juice of ½ lemon
- black pepper
Method
- Place the leek, pancetta and olive oil in a large saucepan with a pinch of salt. Set over a low heat and fry gently until the leek is softened and the pancetta has rendered out some of its fat.
- Add the garlic, potato and artichoke to the pan and cook for 2–3 minutes or until fragrant. Increase the heat to medium-high and add 1.5 litres of water, the bay leaf and another good pinch of salt. Bring to the boil, then turn the heat to low and simmer for 10 minutes.
- Add the pasta to the soup and cook until al dente, around 15 minutes. Add the broad beans, peas and asparagus and cook for 3–4 minutes or until tender. Stir through the parsley and a squeeze of lemon. Season with salt and pepper to taste and serve with a generous drizzle of good olive oil.
Simple Pleasures by Julia Busuttil Nishimura, published by Plum, RRP: $44.99, photography by Armelle Habib. Simple Pleasures is out now and available at excellent independent Victorian bookstores such as Readings and Hill of Content.