On a cold day, there’s nothing better than a hot bowl of soup.  Thick with a variety of colourful vegetables and, ribollita is just the sort of soup I had in mind when the weather took a chilly turn last week.

Ribollita is a traditional (peasant) Tuscan soup whose name translates as ‘reboiled’.  As it sits on the stove for a few days, being reheated and dipped into whenever one is hungry, it develops amazing flavour.  True Tuscan ribollita goes through several stages: the soupy first stage, a starchier second stage where the soup is layered with some stale bread and then it turns into almost a hash.  This is documented beautifully over at Hedonia, complete with gorgeous photographs, for the curious amongst you.

As much as I love a good culinary adventure, I just wanted soup.  No, I wanted very good soup, so I elected to follow Skye Gyngell’s recipe which replaces the bread element of the soup with farro.  Except that I couldn’t find farro, even after making a special trip to Waitrose—no hardship, I got to pick up some of their new cupcakes—so I substituted another ancient grain: spelt.  And as I had a bag of dried borlotti beans kicking around the larder, I used those instead of buying a bag of cannellini beans.  Channelling my inner peasant-girl!

Incidentally, if you have difficulty cooking dried beans, then soak them for up to 24 hours, rather than just overnight.  I know, I know… forward planning is required, but if your beans are a bit on the elderly side (alas the expiry date on the package is next to useless where pulses are concerned) then they’ll need an extra-long soak to enable them to cook all the way through.  I have not-so-fond memories of spending hours boiling chickpeas, only for them to remain horribly hard and mealy in the centre.  After trying the bicarb trick, the flour-paste trick, and cooking them in bottled water (in case my tap water was too hard) I soaked the beans for a full 24 hours and, voila!  Perfectly cooked chickpeas.

But back to the soup.  Straight after cooking had finished it was good.  After sitting for a few hours and being snacked on, it was great.  Reheated the next afternoon for lunch it was absolutely divine.  Intensely savoury, rich, filling and just bloody gorgeous, really.  It still tasted fresh and wholesome, which is quite remarkable after such a long cooking time.

It vastly amuses me that an old and thrifty Tuscan peasant soup is now so fashionable.  But I guess bold flavours will never go out of fashion, and now that I’ve discovered it, I’d never want to be without this soup…

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Tuscan rosemary, raisin and olive oil bread

Pan di Ramerino is a Tuscan bread flavoured with rosemary (ramerino means rosemary in Italian), raisins and olive oil.  Originally it was a Florentine Easter tradition; street vendors would sell the large, fragrant buns as the congregations came out of church on the Thursday of Holy Week (Maundy Thursday in the UK).  Nowadays it can still be bought at Easter, but it is easily bought in bakers throughout the year as it is too delicious to keep for just one day a year!

On Friday morning I was up at the crack of dawn–in fact, I was up before dawn–as I had to let in the guy who was putting up our new fence in the back garden.  In a somewhat sleep-deprived haze, I decided that then would be the perfect time to bake.  While flicking through Culinaria Italy the other day I had spotted the Pan di Ramerino amidst a large array of Italian breads and the sweet and savoury nature of it intreigued me.  I’ve seen a few baking recipes that use rosemary, but I’ve never actually tried one out.

Alas, there was no recipe in Culinaria for the rosemary bread so I had to improvise somewhat.  I did take a quick peek at Ada Boni’s Italian Regional Cookery to confirm that it was just a plain white dough that I needed to make and then went boldly forward.

I used a scaled back version of my Farmhouse Bread dough, but removed the butter as plenty of extra-virgin olive oil would be worked in later.  In my sleep-deprived state, I forgot that the rosemary-infused oil would need time to cool down, so the dough was almost fully risen when I set out the pan to cool.  Whoops.  Don’t do as I do, do as I say and make the infused oil as soon as you’ve set the dough to rise.  You should probably avoid snoozing on the sofa between rises, too, unless your kitchen timer is aggravatingly loud.

Incorporating the oil into the dough was hard and messy work.  The dough rebelled against the large amount of oil and the dough turned very sticky and gloopy.  I found that the best thing to do was to trickle a little oil onto the dough, smooth it over the surface and then start to knead.  Rather like giving someone a massage, really.  By contrast, working in the sugar, salt and raisins was much easier.  I did have to sprinkle some extra flour over the dough as it was still a bit too sticky to shape.  All of a sudden the dough came together into a nice, plump, glorious ball and I quickly shaped it into eight balls.  A short rise, for which I managed to stay awake, and then into the oven.

The rosemary flavour was on the faint side in this batch of bread, so next time round I would chop some of the rosemary finely before infusing into the oil for a more pronounced flavour.  The aroma was great, though, and by the time the bread was cooling on a rack the whole house was beautifully perfumed.

I would definitely make pan di ramerino again.  The crumb of each bun was deliciously soft, slightly peppery from the good olive oil, beautifully fragranced with rosemary and subtly sweet.  With each bite the sweetness and the rosemary flavour (and aroma) built up on the palate.  The buns are actually pretty satisfying; I had one for lunch and didn’t feel the slightest hunger pangs until late afternoon.

Interestingly, before I mentioned the Easter connection to Dave, he commented that it tasted a bit like a Hot Cross Bun, and yes, they’re very similar actually.  Both have a sweet bread dough, dried fruit and a cross on top.  I love these little coincidences… I wonder which bread came first?

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