Broccoli Rabe and White Bean Soup

Broccoli Rabe has surprised me!

Dear Reader, is there anything good in your life that has surprised you lately?  If you have been living your life on this earth for awhile, sometimes it is hard to be surprised.  Our reactions are often a ho hum, been there, done that.  In the words of the poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, where is our sense of wonder?

I Am Waiting
BY LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI

I am waiting for my case to come up
and I am waiting
for a rebirth of wonder
and I am waiting for someone
to really discover America
and wail
and I am waiting
for the discovery
of a new symbolic western frontier
and I am waiting
for the American Eagle
to really spread its wings
and straighten up and fly right
and I am waiting
for the Age of Anxiety
to drop dead
and I am waiting
for the war to be fought
which will make the world safe
for anarchy
and I am waiting
for the final withering away
of all governments
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder...."

Back in the late 1970's when I met my husband, I would say that we only knew about broccoli, the kind that President George Bush Sr. hated.  Later, we started coming across what we called Chinese broccoli at Chinese restaurants.   The Chinese broccoli, or Kai-lan, was bitter and pretty inedible.  They never peeled the outer layers of the stems in the restaurants.

I imagine that we first started seeing broccoli rabe at the farmer's markets.  By that time, we had come to be better, more experienced cooks.  We learned how to prepare it properly by peeling off the ouster layers of the tough stems, pre-cooking the vegetable by boiling it quickly and briefly, and then sautéing the broccoli rabe in olive oil first infused with lots of minced garlic.  Finally we would finish it off with a good squeeze of a lemon, before placing the serving dish upon the table.  Those of you who like your food hotter than we tend to, would benefit from also infusing the oil with hot pepper flakes before sautéing.  How good is a plate of pasta with a side of broccoli rabe?  We would always order a side of it with our pasta, whenever eating out at an Italian restaurant.  We've come a long way from the convenience foods of the 50's, the bags of frozen vegetables, boiled in water, a tasteless food that was put upon the family table.

Broccoli rabe is an aggressive-tasting vegetable.  It is sometimes called rapini.  It is a leafy green vegetable that will boost your red blood cells.  A good food to eat if you suffer from anemia.  In notes to recipes for Broccoli rabe in "The Splendid Table, Recipes from Emilia-Romagna, the Heartland of Northern Italian Food" by Lynne Rossetto Kasper, the author states that broccoli rabe could be substituted for Emilia Romagna's 17th-century version of a simple sauce with onion.  In it the broccoli rabe would be cooked with garlic, cinnamon, nutmeg, blanched almonds for some crunch, currants, and some ricotta cheese, along with the requisite salt and pepper to taste.  This is a perfect foil to meat such as roasted birds, or rabbit.  She goes on to say that, "In Romagna the sauce, made without nuts, spices, and ricotta, tops hot Piadina flatbread.   My own inclination is to keep in the delicious ingredients, cut the hot Piadina into small wedges, top them with the spinach, and serve it as an antipasto or with drinks."

Since I had often done sautes, I thought to find my sense of wonder with a broccoli rabe soup, a gutsy recipe developed by Deborah Madison and included in her cookbook, "Vegetable Soups from Deborah Madison's Kitchen."  But first, here is an ode to soup that our cousin Linda sent by email upon reading one of my prior soup posts.  Our soup here is vegetarian, but the sentiments on soup, in the poem by Lisa Coffman, still apply.

Everybody Made Soups
by Lisa Coffman

After it all, the events of the holidays,
the dinner tables passing like great ships,
everybody made soups for a while.
Cooked and cooked until the broth kept
the story of the onion, the weeping meat.
It was over, the year was spent, the new one
had yet to make its demands on us,
each day lay in the dark like a folded letter.
Then out of it all we made one final thing
out of the bounty that had not always filled us,
out of the ruined cathedral carcass of the turkey,
the limp celery chopped back into plenty,
the fish head, the spine. Out of the rejected,
the passed over, never the object of love.
It was as if all the pageantry had been for this:
the quiet after, the simmered light,
the soothing shapes our mouths made as we tasted.

“Everybody Made Soups” by Lisa Coffman from Less Obvious Gods. © Iris Press, 2013.

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Broccoli Rabe and White Bean Soup with toasted whole country bread and parmesan cheese

Author's Notes: "When I parboil broccoli rabe soup before sautéing it, I always come away feeling it's a pity not to use the liquid. So here it is, with the greens, lots of garlic, a bit of hot pepper, and cannelloni beans--canned in this case. This soup is full of big, bold flavors, and it can be made literally in minutes. Served with an accompaniment of garlic-rubbed whole wheat toast, this soup is best eaten soon after it's made.

Course Soup

Cuisine American

Author Deborah Madison

Ingredients

• Big bunch of broccoli rabe
• 2 tablespoons olive oil plus extra oil for finishing
• 1 onion quartered and sliced crosswise
• 3 garlic cloves 2 coarsely chopped, 1 halved
• 1 or 2 pinches of hot red pepper flakes
• sea salt
• Chunk of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese rind
• One 15-ounce can organic cannelloni beans
• 4 slices whole wheat country bread
• ½ cup freshly grated Parmigiana-Reggiano or Asiago cheese

Instructions

1. Cut the bulk of the stems off the broccoli rabe, but don't discard them. Chop the leaves coarsely, wash them well, and set aside in a colander. Using a paring knife, pull the tough fibers off the stems, then chop them into small pieces.
2. Heat the oil in a wide soup pot. When hot, add the onion and cook over medium-high heat, stirring frequently, until softened, about 5 minutes. Add the chopped garlic and pepper flakes, cook for a minute or so longer, then add the greens and the stems. Season with 1 teaspoon salt, toss around the pan until wilted, then add 5 cups water and the chunk of cheese rind. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat to a simmer. Add the beans, simmer for 15 minutes, then taste for salt.
3. Toast the bread and rub it with the halved garlic clove. Unless you prefer to serve it on the side, break or cut it into pieces and lay them in the bottom of each bowl. Sprinkle a tablespoon of the grated cheese over the bread, then add the beans, broth, and greens. Thread a little oil into each serving and add the rest of the cheese.