White Bean and Chestnut Soup

A recipe for soup

Hello! My name is Rebecca May Johnson, I am a writer and cook and this is my Substack. This newsletter has a recipe for white bean and chestnut soup.

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On Sunday we had lunch at an old fashioned but not oppressive or excessively traditional fish restaurant in Rome called La Torricella where one of the dishes was beans and chestnuts. The small white beans were creamy and the starchy broth was rich but also plain and slightly sweetened by chestnuts. It was universally admired, especially by my mother who has never previously been keen on chestnuts. I have almost never cooked chestnuts from scratch; I did not grow up with them and am not very familiar with dishes that use them. However, after the success of the chickpea, chestnut and pumpkin soup using vacuum packed chestnuts last week, then the restaurant dish using fresh-cooked chestnuts, and the fact they are everywhere in the shops, I felt moved to try.

In fact the chestnuts provided the least of the drama.

I told the women at the market stall selling pulses that I would like some small white beans, and then some chestnuts - enough to make soup for two. They gave me perhaps 18 chestnuts and 500g small dried white beans. I began boiling the beans mid-morning, foolishly thinking they’d be ready by lunch. At 1pm they were fairly far along but not enough and it is never worth eating undercooked pulses out of impatience; I have done so before and it’s miserable.

So eager was I to get going on the soup that I scored, boiled and peeled the chestnuts and sweated down diced onion, celery, fennel (as I had no carrot) and garlic before I was sure the beans were done. I eventually abandoned the sorry situation to eat squares of onion and marinara pizza and new favourite ‘Lemon Soda’ for lunch when the beans were still crumbly and chalky at 1.30pm. When we returned from eating pizza and then a walk to the park the beans, which had been sitting for an hour or so in their cooling liquor, had become tender – and I picked up where I left off.

Sam said ‘I don’t think I have ever looked forward to eating a soup more’ after he hada a taste when I was cooking. After dinner he said ‘I want to get a cap made that says I love the soup’. Annoyingly, cooking the beans from scratch and using the fresh chestnuts was astonishingly good.

I cooked all the beans (500g) the women in the market sold me and had quite a few left after our soup dinner - enough to make the soup again. I simmered them in lots of plain water that I topped up a few times without salt so that I could feed them to the baby. I used some for the baby’s dinner mixed with one cooked chestnut, olive oil, butter and parmesan and then blitzed which produced made a marvellously silken texture. She ate it all. We are discussing what to do with the remaining beans. There could be: beans and garlicky greens on toast; beans in passata with a fried egg for breakfast; beans ‘amatriciana’ cooked with tomato, crispy fried guanciale and its rendered fat with pecorino on top (sam’s excellent idea); a different soup; beans and pork chop… etc.

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White Bean and Chestnut Soup

Ingredients:

250g dried small white beans e.g. haricot, cooked in water until tender (will take a couple of hours) and c.400ml of their cooking liquid - enough to cover.
15-18 chestnuts scored with a cross with a serrated or sharp knife
1 red onion, finely diced
1 rib celery, finely diced
1/2 fennel bulb or carrot, trimmed and finely diced
2 garlic cloves, finely diced
1 sprig fresh rosemary
5 tablespoons olive oil

To serve:
extra virgin olive oil
finely grated parmesan
chilli flakes

How to make:

Before beginning: simmer the beans in plenty of water until truly tender, topping up the water when needed. Drop the scored chestnuts in a pan of boiling water and cook for c.20 minutes or until they peel easily and are tender inside. Peel when they are cool enough to handle but still damp as when the skin dries fully they are harder to peel. Some crumbled a little when peeled, but that just served to thicken the soup. Heat 5 tablespoons olive oil in a deep frying pan, saucepan or casserole. Add onions, celery, fennel or carrot and a pinch of salt and sweat for c. 10 minutes until soft but not browned. Add the garlic and cook for another minute or two, taking care it doesn’t burn. Add the beans and their liquor making sure the beans are covered by the liquor, and the rosemary. Simmer for twenty minutes. Add the peeled chestnuts and simmer gently for a further 10 minutes. If it gets too thick, add another ladle of bean liquor - you want it to feel still tangibly like a soup. Season to taste with salt. Allow to rest for 5-10 minutes before eating. It is happily reheated if left for longer (I cooked it before the baby’s bath and ate it an hour later when she was asleep!). Serve with tasty olive oil on top, and parmesan and chilli flakes to taste.

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Eating notes

We ate squares of white onion and marinara pizza for lunch when I failed to cook the beans in time – from Pizza Viola, which I love. Plain onion pizza is so sweet and so delicious! Sorry to never have seen it in the UK.