Italian Wedding Soup
Italian Wedding Soup
I’ve been wanting to make this soup for a very long time! It was one of my favorite soups in my NYC days for eating at my desk when I didn’t have meetings. Yes, eating at your desk is a thing in NYC. The local Hale & Hearty had a daily menu of staples, and a daily menu of specials. Whenever I saw Italian Wedding Soup I snatched it up immediately!
I created this recipe inspired by my working lunch thinking it was one of those Italian American dishes. Turns out it has roots in regional Italian cuisine. It’s based on a soup called Minestra Maritata. A veggie soup ‘married’ with meat in the soup as well. This soup hails from the Campania region. I also found a soup called Polpettine in Brodo, which means mini meatballs in broth. I’ll have to make both of these classics to taste for research of course…..tough job!
Whether this is Italian American or classic, either way its GOOD, and will warm you up on those cold, wintery days! I made it with homemade chicken stock (more on that below) but you can easily make it with store bought chicken stock for a quick meal. It’s a one-pot meal, very filling, easy to make, and did I mention the leftovers are fantastic? Also, it freezes well!
A Note on Chicken Stock
The classic way to make chicken stock is with chicken pieces, both meat and bones, carrots, onions, celery, and aromatics (bay leaf, peppercorn, sturdy herbs, etc). You simmer a chicken stock on low for at least 2 hours and magic happens. All these vitamins, nutrients and collagen are extracted from the chicken and end up in the broth. It’s always a game changer when you make a soup with a stock vs water. It makes the soup so much more flavorful, adds body to it and has restorative properties that make you feel so good when you’re not feeling the best. I always put a stock on to simmer, while I’m home organizing or writing recipes.
While this is the classic way to make chicken stock, I’m also very zero waste and pocket conscious during these post pandemic times. When you simmer meat for hours for stock, the meat ends up being devoid of nutrients and isn’t really good for anything. If I ever roast a meat, or debone meat I make a stock right away or I freeze the bones to make stock later. For Thanksgiving, all those turkey bones were turned into stock and placed into food saver bags in my freezer. I love cooking with chicken thighs, and often debone to flatten them. I just put the bones in a pot to simmer, add veggies from my fridge and get busy doing other things. You can also save leftover veggies such as the green part of leeks, carrot ends, onion ends. You can collect them in a freezer bag and when it’s full you make a stock. The only veggies you want to avoid for stock are the veggies in the cabbage family, aside from that you can get creative to infuse flavor into your stocks.
Italian Wedding Soup
Serves 4 to 6
Ingredients:
4oo grams (approximately ¾ lb to 1 lb) ground pork
3 large carrots
2 celery stalks, leaves reserved
½ a leek
30 grams (¼ cup) bread crumbs
¼ cup finely chopped parsley
1 egg
30 grams (¼ cup) grated Parmigiano Reggiano
1 scallion, white part only
1.5 L chicken stock
Small pasta for soup
2 bunches of spinach (about 4 cups roughly chopped)
EVOO
Salt to taste
Italian Wedding Mise en Place
Method:
Dice the carrots and celery into medium dice. Thinly slice the leeks.
Pre-heat oven to 200 C. Cover the bread crumbs with water so that it barely covers the top layer of the breadcrumbs and let it sit to the side. Meanwhile in a large bowl add the ground pork, parsley, egg, season with salt and pepper. Add the grated cheese and the bread crumbs which should be hydrated by now (you will know because it will have absorbed all the water). Mix all the ingredients together and assemble mini Polpettini or meatballs. I’m using about half of a dessert spoon as the measure for one. Roll all the meatballs in a baking tray. We will only be using half of the meatballs, and freezing the other half for future soup.
In a large pot, drizzle some EVOO and heat on low to medium flame. Add the carrots, celery and leeks. Sauté until they are softer, yet still crisp. We don’t want to caramelize, just cook them slightly to soften which will take about 8 to 10 minutes. Add the chicken stock, and bring it to a boil then lower to a simmer.
Meanwhile add the polpettini to the oven, bake for 12 min, turning them over halfway through. We want them to get a little golden, but not crispy.
While the soup is coming to a simmer, wash and roughly chop the spinach. It will look like a lot but it wilts so quickly and disappears. It should measure about 4 cups roughly chopped. Set the spinach to the side as it will be added at the very end. Take the celery leaves and finely chop, set to the side. Reserve the green part of the scallion for another use, and thinly slice the white part. You can put the scallion with the chopped celery leaves, this will be the finishing garnish.
When the polpettini are cooked, add them to the soup. Season the soup with salt to taste. Add the pasta you are using to the soup. I used a tiny shape called grattini which look similar to pearl couscous, and they take 8 minutes to cook. When the pasta is ready, stir in the spinach, and shut off the heat.
Plate the soup making sure to get some broth, veggies and polpettini. Garnich with the chopped celery leaves, white scallion and extra grated Parmigiano and enjoy! If you have leftovers you can keep in the fridge, and simply reheat or you can even freeze it!
