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<\/a><\/div>\nSecond: we are also into soup, apparently, which is why I\u2019m going to tell you about yet another<\/i>, our third soup in a row. I am so, so sorry.<\/p>\n This particular soup, however, is only approximately a soup. I don\u2019t know that I would have even thought to call it a soup, actually, except for the fact that its author, the wonderful, recently departed Marcella Hazan<\/a>, called it that. She called it Rice and Smothered Cabbage Soup. To me, it\u2019s closer to a risotto, a risotto that starts with an entire head of Savoy cabbage, shredded and cooked very gently in plenty of olive oil, until it gives up the fight and goes sweet and tender and limp as a rag. (I am simile-impaired tonight. Limp as… the arm of a sleeping person? Limp as… soft as… a pile of silk ribbon? Ribbon that you can cook with rice and broth and then eat?) This soup exemplifies one of the best lessons I\u2019ve learned from Italian food: namely, that cooking vegetables for a long time, until they fall apart, or nearly fall apart – what we non-Italians might wrongly call over<\/i>cooking vegetables –\u00a0works like no other method to draw out their intrinsic sweetness and deepest, fullest flavor. (Another good example of this is my friend Francis\u2019s eggplant pasta sauce<\/a>, which, if you haven\u2019t yet made, do.)<\/p>\n I first learned about this recipe almost six years ago, from Luisa, who posted it<\/a> on her site. \u00a0I made it not long after, and I considered writing about it here, but I figured that was probably redundant. \u00a0So I quietly kept making it and not telling you about it. \u00a0I made it most recently last Saturday night, after a day spent traveling home from our family Thanksgiving celebration (accidentally leaving behind our stroller on the steps of my cousin\u2019s house in California! Losing our off-site airport parking stub! Craning our necks to find our car as the kind, young shuttle driver made loop after loop after loop around the lot!), and Brandon and I sat on the living room floor after June went to bed and ate big bowls of it in front of our first fire of the season, and when we both went back for seconds, I thought, The people need to know<\/i>.<\/p>\n You can\u2019t really tell that it\u2019s a soup up there under that small mountain of grated Parmesan, but that\u2019s for the best, because it\u2019s not the most handsome soup around. The cabbage is cooked for almost two hours, long enough that its color comes to approximate that of a canned pea. But. You take that cabbage and cook it some more, now with broth and rice. (This part only takes about twenty minutes, so if you made the cabbage ahead of time (it freezes well), it\u2019s almost an instant dinner. Instant-ish.) And when the rice is tender and the soup is thick and steaming and has a bolstering, reassuring look about it, you stir in some butter and Parmesan, and then, if you live in our house, you eat it with more Parmesan on top.<\/p>\n\n<\/a><\/div>\n<\/a><\/div>\nRice and Smothered Cabbage Soup<\/h2>\n
Adapted slightly from Marcella Hazan\u2019s Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking<\/a><\/i><\/h3> \n \n <\/header>\n\n