A warm bowl of soup on a fall day is a wondrous thing. This is a classic fridge magnet recipe that I use to clean up old veg.
Mechanic
This is a one-pot pasta: the pasta cooks directly in the soup, with starch as the only thickener. Reduce the cooking liquid down to just what the soup needs. The released starch turns it smooth and velvety without any flour or cream.
Ingredients
- 1 package (~550g) prepackaged meatballs, or ground meat
- 100g grated smoked sausage, smoked tempeh, or bacon
- 1 onion, grated
- 1 carrot, grated
- 1 celery stalk, diced or grated
- 1 tablespoon double-concentrated tomato paste
- 1–2 cups dried shiitake mushrooms, broken into bite-sized pieces
- 500ml passata (deseeded tomato sauce)
- 120ml (½ cup) dry white wine, for deglazing
- 180g dried pasta, something hardy (rigatoncini, fusilli, orecchiette)
- balsamic vinegar, to taste
- thyme, dried oregano, salt, and pepper, to taste
- a handful of parsley, chopped, to finish
- leftover tomatoes, zucchini, kale, or other hardy vegetables, chopped (optional)
- #win-the-fridge bonus: whatever needs using up goes in with the mushrooms
Method
Cover the shiitakes with warm water and let soak while you prep everything else.
Bake the meatballs (or shape and bake ground meat into rough meatballs) until browned, reserving the drippings. Add half the meatballs to the pot and mash into a rough crumble. Add the grated sausage and fry it with the meatballs, dry, and over medium-high heat until they start to stick. That’s the point; it’s where the fond comes from.
Add the onion, carrot, and celery and fry until softened. Stir in the tomato paste and cook until it darkens slightly. Drain the shiitakes, reserving the soaking liquid, and add them to the pot along with any hardy extra vegetables. Set the mushroom soaking liquid aside.
Deglaze with the white wine, scraping up the fond.
Add the passata, the remaining meatballs, the reserved mushroom liquid, and enough water to cover everything generously. Bring to a simmer.
Add the pasta and cook, stirring occasionally, until it’s about 80% done. The starch it sheds is what thickens the soup. Season with balsamic, thyme, oregano, salt, and pepper.
Stir in the parsley just before serving.
Hold briefly off the heat to let the pasta finish and the soup thicken further, then serve.
To serve
Fresh bread, for mopping. And I won’t complain if you add fresh garlic and olive oil to that bread.
Notes
- Flexible by design: swap the hardy veg for whatever’s about to turn.
- Grating the aromatics reduces the time to cook and lets them melt into the soup.
- This started out as a pasta dish that evolved into a hearty soup, that really deserves some navy beans.
- A vegetarian version of this can use vegan fritters (to replace the meatballs), and tempeh. The principle is the same, building fond, softening veg, and using a bright wine for balance.