Dishes from Central Italy combine both South and North. This soup is very popular in Central Italy, six regions like: Tuscany, Umbria, Marches, Lazio, Abruzzo and Molise.
The small brown lentils which are grown in Central Italy are usually used in this wonderful soup, but green lentils may be used as preferred.
PASTA AND LENTIL SOUP
Ingredients:
1 cup dried brown lentils
1 cup soup pasta (Ditalini, Pastina or Orzo)
1 cup chopped onion ( 1 large)
1 cup chopped celery (2-3 stalks)
1 cup chopped carrots (1 large or 2 medium)
250 g ham, cut into cubes
200 g bacon, cut into cubes
1 tablespoon fresh Oregano (chopped)
1 cup fresh parsley (chopped)
9 cups chicken stock or vegetable broth
5 tablespoons olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
Method:
Soak lentils in cold water for 2-3 hours.
Rinse, drain and set aside.
In cast iron pot or pot with heavy bottom add olive oil, heat it up and add bacon. Cook until browned slightly.
Add ham and cook for couple minutes.
Add onion and cook along.
Then add chopped vegetables.
Cook for 5 minutes until tender.
Add lentils and stir to coat with fat and vegetables.
Add fresh oregano and half of fresh parsley.
Cook for couple minutes.
Add chicken stock and cook on medium heat for 1 hour.
Season with salt and pepper and add pasta.
cook as directed on pasta package. Ditalini take 8 minutes to cook.
Add remaining fresh parsley and more salt if needed.
Turn off the heat, close the lid and let soup stand before serving!
Enjoy!
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Nastassja:)
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Hi guys and welcome to my Channel today I’m making pasta and lentil soup and this recipe comes from Central Italy where the dishes are drawn from a peasant Heritage which is in the South to more sophisticated style which is in the north well at least I understand
What the peasant style of this dish is because the ingredients are quite simple and it’s easy to make but sophisticated style of this dish is that all the ingredients are the same size let’s get started to make this soup you will need one cup of either green or brown lils
And pick through them just to make sure they are no bad ones you also will need one cup of soup pasta which is a very small pasta and there are different kinds that you could choose from the one I’m using in the soup in my soup today is called ditalini
They’re like little tiny tubes or you could use pastina pasta or even Oro in order to have your lentils cook faster you need to soak them so just put the lentils in the container uh pour some water and then soak them for at least 2 or 3 hours and after that they’re going
To look like this so your brown lentils pretty much became a green ones so and one cup of lentils became two cups of lentils we need some veggies for our soup and it’s going to be one cup of onion chopped into cubes to match our soup pasta one cup of celery cut into
Cubes and one cup of carrots but of course you can make this soup all vegetarian and just sauté your vegetables and olive oil and then add some vegetable stock but in the original recipe there is some meat that’s used and it’s a cured meat so we will need
250 g of ham cut into cubes and also about 200 g of bacon cut into cubes and it’s much easier to cut bacon into cubes or whatever shape you like if it is slightly Frozen we will also need one teaspoon of fresh oregano but if you don’t have
Oregano you could use thy or both or just use a dried one whichever one you have in your pantry but I think it gives it a nice flavor to our soup and then I had to run outside to get some fresh parsley because that’s the only herb
That survived in my herb garden after a couple days of very cold weather we had here so give it a rough top and set it aside we also will need nine cups of chicken stock or you could use vegetable stock or for more intense flavor you can
Use beef stock we also we’ll need 5 tablespoons of olive oil either virgin one or cooking one 1 teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper and of course Salt to taste to make this soup I’m using 7 qu cast iron pots to which we’re going to add our olive oil and um I’m using
Extra virgin olive oil then we’re going to add our bacon and we have to Crispen it up a little bit not to the point when it gets like really blacken but just kind of brownish plus the drippings from our bacon will combine with our olive oil and give our
Soup a very good taste then add your ham and you can use any kind of ham you like you could use Parma ham or um ring ham or even Canadian bacon but you um all the flavor that of the ham that you enjoy the most then we’re going to add
The onions and we’re going to start cooking the onions and the onions have to get soft before we start adding our other vegetables as our celery and carrots and we’re going to combine it all and cook for about 5 minutes until the vegetables get a little bit bit tender like
That and it’s time to add our lentils we’re just going to combine them with everything that we have in the pot and the tip here for you do not add salt to your lentils add salt at the end or um almost at the end because the lentils
Have to soften up and using the salt will prevent them to to soften up and it will take just a little bit longer to cook them then we’re going to add our oregano fresh oregano and half of of our fresh herbs then just mix it and it’s
Time to get our chicken broth in and then you’re going to mix it and see what the consistency is because remember we still have to add the pasta we’re going to cook this for about 1 hour and at this this point your lentils are done and your soup is done so now
We’re going to season it we’re going to add the salt and the pepper to our soup taste it in between and add more seasoning if we need to and then we’re going to add our pasta and look at the directions on your package like my pasta
Um takes 10 minutes or 8 minutes to cook um you want want to undercook it a little bit because the soup is going to stand four 5 minutes and the pasta will cook if it didn’t during the cooking time then we’re going to add the remainder of our fresh herbs close the
Lid turn off the heat and let the soup stand for at least 5 minutes and then you ready to serve it serve your soup with some rustic Italian bread and some more fresh herbs and in enjoy it thank you so much for watching please like And
Subscribe and I will see you soon bye
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