Italy Cuisine

Eight Minestra Variations

Minestra is a thick broth, very much like hotch-potch, only thicker. In Italy it is often served at the beginning of dinner instead of soup; it also makes an excellent lunch dish. Two or three tablespoonsful of A "Condiment for Seasoning Minestre" will be found a great improvement to any of these minestre.

A Condiment for Seasoning Minestre, &c.

Ingredients: Onions, celery, carrots, butter, salt, stock, tomatoes, mushrooms.

Cut up an onion, a stick of celery, and a carrot; fry them in butter and salt; add a few bits of cooked ham and veal cut up, two mushrooms, and the pulp of a tomato. Cook for a quarter of an hour, and add a little stock occasionally to keep it moist. Pass through a sieve, and use for seasoning minestre, macaroni, rice, &c. It should be added when the dish is nearly cooked.

Minestra alla Casalinga

Ingredients: Rice, butter, stock, vegetables.

All sorts of vegetables will serve for this dish. Blanch them in boiling salted water, then drain and fry them in butter. Add plenty of good stock, and put them on a slow fire. Boil four ounces of rice in stock, and when it is well done add the stock with the vegetables. Season with two or three spoonsful of No. 35, and serve with grated cheese handed separately.

Minestra of Rice and Turnips

Ingredients: Rice, turnips, butter, gravy, tomatoes.

Cut three or four young turnips into slices and put them on a dish, strew a little salt over them, cover them with another dish, and let them stand for about two hours until the water has run out of them. Then drain the slices, put them in a frying-pan and fry them slightly in butter. Add some good gravy and mashed-up tomatoes, and after having cooked this for a few minutes pour it into good boiling stock. Add three ounces of well-washed rice, and boil for half-an-hour.

Minestra loses its flavour if it is boiled too long. In Lombardy, however, rice, macaroni, &c., are rarely boiled enough for English tastes.

Minestra alla Capucina

Ingredients: Rice, anchovies, butter, stock, and onions.

Scale an anchovy, pound it, and fry it in butter together with a small onion cut across, and four ounces of boiled rice. Add a little salt, and when the rice is a golden brown, take out the onion and gradually add some good stock until the dish is of the consistency of rice pudding.

Minestra of Semolina

Ingredients: Stock, semolina, Parmesan.

Put as much stock as you require into a saucepan, and when it begins to boil add semolina very gradually, and stir to keep it from getting lumpy Cook it until the semolina is soft, and serve with grated Parmesan handed separately. To one quart of soup use three ounces of semolina.

Minestrone alla Milanese

Ingredients: Rice or macaroni, ham, bacon, stock, all sorts of vegetables.

Minestrone is a favourite dish in Lombardy when vegetables are plentiful. Boil all sorts of vegetables in stock, and add bits of bacon, ham, onions braized in butter, chopped parsley, a clove of garlic with two cuts, and rice or macaroni. Put in those vegetables first which require most cooking, and do not make the broth too thin. Leave the garlic in for a quarter of an hour only.

Minestra of Rice and Cabbage

Ingredients: Rice, cabbage, stock, ham, tomato sauce.

Cut off the stalk and all the hard outside leaves of a cabbage, wash it and cut it up, but not too small, then drain and cook it in good stock and add two ounces of boiled rice. This minestre is improved by adding a little chopped ham and a few spoonsful of tomato sauce.

Minestra of Rice and Celery

Ingredients: Celery, rice, stock.

Cut up a head of celery and remove all the green parts, then boil it in good stock and add two ounces of rice, and boil till it is well cooked.