Midwesterners have to work hard at mood maintenance as snow falls snowfall outside their windows in the middle of April. My first attempt to remain upbeat by humming “April in Paris” was a bust in this year of pandemic. Inspired by the forecast of yet another snowstorm tomorrow, I took the proactive measure of preparing a celebration of Spring in a soup bowl. What's more, every serving comes to the table with a therapeutic spoonful of pistou.
By definition, pistou is a powerful Provençal paste of crushed garlic, fresh basil and salt thinned with olive oil. Its better known cousin is pesto, a sauce Italians have been making since Roman times with the same ingredients plus parmesan and pine nuts. The name derives from the Italian verb pestare, meaning to grind or crush, which purists feel requires that pesto be made in a mortar and pestle. To my knowledge, no double-blind clinical trial has been performed on either sauce. Aside from claims to sweat equity or a sense of national pride, there’s scant evidence that working by hand produces a tastier sauce than one made in a blender or food processor.
Hot vegetable soup adapts best to seasonal produce in the cool months of spring and fall. In April I shop for bulb onions, leeks, green beans, peas and spinach. Squash, tomatoes and hard shell beans come into play at the end of summer.
Pistou is a reliable and compelling flavor catalyst in all soups of Mediterranean origin. In the interests of transparency, I admit to routinely violating this definition by adding toasted pine nuts to my pistou. I also have been known to substitute parsley for a portion of the basil rather than pay for several small containers of expensive greenhouse basil at the grocery.
Aside from chopping up the vegetables, soupe au pistou is easy to assemble, and it cooks quickly. It's my practice to add vegetables sequentially, according to the time it takes for them to cook, so they retain their texture and flavor. I also add salt in small amounts over the course of the cooking process. The cooking is all over in a half hour, including the pistou.
SOUPE AU PISTOU
Ingredients for 6 - 8 servings:
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 bunch small bulb onions or 1 small yellow onion, diced
1 stalk celery, diced
1 medium leek, white and light green portion, quartered lengthwise, rinsed, thinly sliced
1 small zucchini, ends trimmed, quartered lengthwise, seeded and diced
6 ounces green beans, rinsed, ends trimmed, cut into 1/2” lengths
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
6 ounces baby spinach, coarsely chopped
Bouquet garni: 3 parsley stems, 1 stem thyme, bay leaf
1 quart cool water
1 cup frozen peas
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon sea salt, or to taste
Pistou:
2 tablespoons toasted pine nuts
2 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped
1 cup basil leaves or a mix of basil and parsley
1/3 cup olive oil
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon sea salt, or to taste
Soup: Heat the oil in a heavy 4 quart saucepan. Saute the onions with the celery over medium low heat until pieces begin to wilt, about 2 minutes. Add the leek slices, the zucchini and green bean pieces. Stir in 1/2 teaspoon salt and continue cooking and frequently stirring another 2 -3 minutes. Lay the spinach leaves on top of the vegetables, cover the pot and turn the heat down for a 1-2 minutes to wilt it. Stir spinach into the vegetables as you pour in the water. Add the bouquet garni, cover the pan, raise the heat and bring mixture to the simmer. Stir in the peas, return to the simmer, partially covered and cook another 10 minutes or until all the vegetables are just cooked through. Add the lemon juice and salt, to taste.
Pistou (processor): Drop each clove of garlic into the machine while it is running. Scrape down the sides, add pine nuts, basil and salt then pulse for 15 seconds. Pour in the olive oil and lemon juice slowly with the machine running. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, taste and add salt as desired. Run again briefly. Pistou (mortar and pestle): Crush the garlic and pine nuts. Slowly work in the basil leaves with a little salt, alternating with olive oil and lemon juice.
Serving: Ladle soup into individual bowls and spoon on a tablespoon of pistou for guests to stir into the soup as they consume it.
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