Provençal Soupe au pistou - Vegetable Soup with Basil Paste

Provence's summer soup: beans, courgette, potato and pasta, finished with a spoon of pistou - basil, garlic and olive oil, without pine nuts. It is not cooked in but folded through in the bowl.

• 90 minutes plus Einweichzeit
• 6 servings
• Main course

• vegetarian
• nut-free
• high in fibre
• plant-based
• microbiome-friendly
• high in protein
• heart-healthy

Ingredients

• 300 g Potatoes (waxy, diced)
• 300 g Courgette (diced)
• 300 g Tomatoes (peeled and diced)
• 250 g Green beans (snapped into two-centimetre lengths)
• 200 g White beans (weighed dry, soaked overnight)
• 200 g Carrots (diced)
• 150 g Leek (the white and pale green only, in rings)
• 100 g Wholemeal pasta (small shapes, weighed raw)
• 45 g Olive oil (mostly into the pistou)
• 40 g Parmesan (freshly grated, into the pistou)
• 30 g Basil (two large bunches, leaves only)
• 20 g Garlic (raw, into the pistou)
• 5 g Salt (add only once the white beans are soft)
• 1800 ml Water

Instructions

1. Soak the white beans overnight, drain and precook them in fresh unsalted water for 50 minutes.
2. Put leek, carrots and potatoes on with the water and the precooked beans and simmer for 20 minutes.
3. Add courgette, green beans and tomatoes and simmer another 15 minutes until everything is tender. Season with salt only now.
4. Add the pasta and cook it in the soup.
5. For the pistou, pound basil leaves, raw garlic and a pinch of salt in a mortar, then work in the Parmesan and, little by little, the olive oil until you have a thick green paste.
6. Ladle the soup into bowls and stir a heaped teaspoon of pistou into each - not into the pot, where it would lose its aroma within seconds.

Pistou ist kein Pesto

Both names come from the Latin pistare, to pound. Ligurian pesto contains pine nuts, Provençal pistou does not - it is only basil, garlic, oil and sometimes cheese. The coast road between Genoa and Nice is barely 200 kilometres long.

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