Soupe au pistou

Summer holidays may be coming to an end but the weather is still reasonably good enough to allow some time lunching/dining outside with loved ones.

By some unexpected turn, a video from France 3 's regional news caught my attention the other day. It showcased a Provençal cook picking the vegetables from his plot to make a soupe au pistou.

Looks heathy, eh?

For those of you who have never come across this dish, it is a traditional August/September soup from Provence made of the vegetables available at that time of year: courgettes (zucchini for my American readers), onion, beans, potatoes, tomatoes, lots of garlic and tons of basil. Add to this a generous sprinkling of grated Parmesan cheese, some pasta, and you end up with a healthy, delicious and filling meal. 

What's more to love is that the recipe always varies and there are no hard and fast rule, except for the basil. There must be a very large amount of the stuff to make it work .

Some people even add bacon , carrots and peas, even! (Probably a Parisian version haha...)

Of course pistou is provençal for pesto, although it doesn't contain pine nuts.

So here is the recipe (it is intended as a guide).

Serves 6. 

Preparation : 1 hour

Cooking time: 1h40

Ingredients:

- 300g (off the shell weight) pinto beans

- 300g (off the shell weight) haricot beans

- 300g fine green beans, broken into pieces of 3cm approx.

- 3 courgettes, cubed

- 2 or 3 potatoes, cubed

- 1 large onion

- 6 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

- 6 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

- 100g macaroni or spaghetti broken into small pieces.

For the pistou ("la pommade"):

- 500g tomatoes, peeled and chopped into small pieces

- 8 cloves of garlic

- 2 large bunches of basil

- 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

Handy tip: to remove the tomato skins, place them in a heatproof dish and cover them in boiling water for 30 seconds.

Method:

- Place the olive oil in a very large pan and the garlic. Turn the heat on and leave the garlic to infuse for a few seconds.

- Add the onion, courgette, beans, potatoes and sauté for about 10 mins.

- Cover the vegetables  with water, add salt to taste and simmer for 1H30.

At the end of the cooking time, cook the pasta in the mixture. Turn the heat off and add the pistou.

To make the pistou:

Prepare it at the start so that the flavours infuse.

With a pestle  and mortar, crush the garlic and the basil. Add the olive oil and tomatoes, the Parmesan and mix well.

Bon appétit!