Classic Minestrone

Ingredients

• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 carrots, peeled and diced
• 2 celery sticks, diced
• 2 tbsp tomato purée
• 1 large onion, diced
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 100 g green beans, trimmed and cut into 2cm pieces
• 1 x 400g tin cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 medium potato, peeled and diced
• 100 g small pasta, ditalini or macaroni
• 1 x 400g tin chopped tomatoes
• 2 medium courgettes, diced
• salt and black pepper
• 1 litre vegetable stock
• parmesan rind
• pesto and parmesan, to serve
• Crusty ciabatta, to serve
• Fresh basil, to serve
• Simple green salad, to serve

Method

1. Warm the olive oil in a heavy pot over medium heat. Add the onion, carrots and celery with a generous pinch of salt — the salt pulls moisture out and helps them soften rather than colour. Cook for 8 minutes, stirring now and then, until the onion is translucent and the carrots have lost their raw edge.
2. Stir in the garlic, oregano and tomato purée and cook for 60–90 seconds, just until the garlic is fragrant and the purée darkens from bright red to brick. Don't let the garlic catch — burnt garlic turns the whole pot bitter, and there's no rescuing it once it goes. You're also blooming the oregano in the oil here so it tastes of itself, not dust.
3. Tip in the chopped tomatoes and the vegetable stock — the stock is what breaks the tomatoes down into broth, otherwise you'd be eating heated tin. Add the potato and courgettes, and drop in the parmesan rind if you've got one for an extra savoury hum. Bring up to a gentle boil.
4. Drop to a quiet simmer and cook for 15 minutes, until the potato gives easily to the point of a knife but still holds its shape.
5. Add the green beans and the pasta and simmer for a further 8–10 minutes, stirring once or twice so nothing sticks to the base. The pasta cooks directly in the broth — it has no other chance to take on salt, so check the broth now and salt it generously, the way you'd salt pasta water. It should taste seasoned, not flat.
6. Stir through the cannellini beans and warm through for 2 minutes — they're already cooked, you're just heating them. Fish out the parmesan rind. Add a small squeeze of lemon if you like, off the heat — it lifts the whole pot and wakes the tomato up. Taste, season, taste again. Adjust now, not at the table.
7. Ladle into warm bowls. Swirl a spoonful of pesto into each, shower with freshly grated parmesan, drizzle with a thread of extra virgin olive oil, and scatter torn basil over the top. Serve with a simple green salad alongside.