Escarole and White-Bean Soup

Name: Escarole and White-Bean Soup
Yield: makes 6 servings
Ingredients: 1 1/2 cups cannellini, Great Northern, baby lima, or other small dried white beans; 2 quarts water; 2 bay leaves; 1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling over the finished soup; Salt; 6 cups coarsely shredded escarole leaves (preferably the tough outer leaves), washed and drained; 8 cloves garlic, peeled and cut in half; 4 to 6 whole dried peperoncini (hot red peppers); Pan-Fried Garlic Bread (page 53), optional

December 9, 2011

If you’re making salad with the tender, inner leaves of a head of escarole, this is a good place to use the tough outer leaves. In fact, they’re even better for this soup. Just remove any bruised or yellow parts of the leaf and shred the rest. If you like, double the amount of beans in this recipe, fish half of them out of the pot after cooking, and save them for the Arugula and White-Bean Salad on page 60. Spoon off all but enough of the cooking liquid barely to cover the remaining beans before adding the escarole and finishing the soup. Whole dried peperoncino or diavolillo peppers are the type of chili peppers that are used, seeds and all, to make the crushed red pepper that you are familiar with. Toasting the whole peppers along with garlic cloves in olive oil brings out their nuttiness and spice. I like to serve them whole right in the soup, where they can be easily spotted and removed.

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