I have to own up to stealing this recipe a couple of months ago from my friend, Dave Cook. Like all simple dishes, it relies on good quality ingredients. For the 'beans' element, I prefer to soak and cook dried ones for this soup but you could use the bottled Spanish Alubia beans which come in excellent cooking stock. The 'greens' in this recipe is escarole, a broad-leaved endive which looks a bit like a large, frilly romaine or cos lettuce but it is a bit more robust. Escarole is sweeter and less bitter than its endive relatives. You could use something like turnip tops (cima di rapa) if you blanch them in boiling salted water for a minute or two first then plunge into cold water to retain the colour. As I had some turnip tops, this is what I used for the soup photographed.

Share: