Summer pistou soup

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Summer pistou soup

Name: Summer pistou soup
Prep time: 5 min
Cook time: 25 min
Total time: 30 min
Yield: 4

Starter Serves 4 30 min

There are literally hundreds of recipes for this Provençal vegetarian soup and its Italian counterpart, minestrone. This one is designed to take advantage of summer abundance, but you can use pretty much any soup-friendly vegetable you like. The pistou sauce is a lovely addition, but Italian pesto is essentially the same sauce, and if you want to cut corners just use some good stuff from a jar.

Ingredients

For the pistou:

3 garlic cloves
1 tsp sea salt
50g basil leaves
50g Parmesan, grated (optional)
150ml olive oil

For the soup

200g broad beans, podded weight
2 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
200g new potatoes (or other), scrubbed and diced
2 carrots, sliced
8 cherry tomatoes, cut into quarters
1.5 litres veg stock
250g asparagus, cut into 3cm lengths
200g white beans, cooked and rinsed
salt and pepper

Method

Prep time: 5 min

Cooking time: 25 min

To make the pistou

Step 1
pound the garlic and salt in a pestle and mortar. Pound in the basil (you may need some oil to loosen it), then the cheese and oil. Or you can blitz everything in a processor.

To make the soup

Step 1
Boil the broad beans for 3 minutes, drain, refresh in cold water, drain again and remove the outer skins. Keep to one side.
Step 2
Heat the oil in a pan and cook the onion slowly for 8 minutes, until soft but not coloured.
Step 3
Add the potatoes, carrots, tomatoes and stock. Simmer for 10 minutes. Add the broad beans, asparagus and white beans. Simmer for 3 minutes. Season and serve with the pistou to swirl through.