RECIPES

PAPPA AL POMODORO

Traditional Tuscan peasant summer bread soup with tomatoes, leeks and basil

This is a perfect recipe if you have some leftover bread and an excess of summer tomatoes. This dish is present in every kitchen in Tuscany during the summer season. The important thing here, aside from the ingredients, is to get the ratio between bread and tomato right. Too often we see pappa al pomodoro that looks like tomato sauce. A nicely balanced pappa al pomodoro is fluffy and light, with a bright red color.

Ingredients

20 tomatoes (fresh or canned and peeled)

1 cup x.v. olive oil

2 leeks

a large bunch of basil

1/2 lb of stale Tuscan bread, sliced

2 tbs salt

fresh ground pepper

Preparation

Wash the leeks, remove the root, and slice them thinly.

Wash the tomatoes and roughly cut into pieces.

In a large pot, preheat the olive oil on low heat. Add the leeks and let them cook until they are soft. This normally takes about 7 minutes.

Add tomatoes and 2 tbs of salt. Add about a 2 cups of water and cover. Turn up the heat to medium and let it cook for about a half hour, until the tomatoes are well cooked and falling apart. *If you are using canned tomatoes, feel free to leave in some (not all) of the tomato juice*

Chop the basil finely and add it to the pot.

Then, add your sliced bread.

Turn off the heat, and let it rest for 20 minutes.

Mix everything together with a whisk. Be sure to break the bread apart with your whisk, so that all of the ingredients get mixed evenly. The result should be a thick soup that you should be able to eat with a fork, but not too dense. If your soup seems too watery, you can add more bread to absorb some of the excess liquid.

This recipe yields a lot of pappa al pomodoro, serving around eight portions (depending on how hungry everyone is). However, these leftovers are incredible the next day. Trust me, you will want to have extra.