It’s these last few weeks of winter that are the hardest. You can just about smell spring, but you’re loath to actually declare its arrival, because doing so might somehow, superstitiously, sabotage the schedule.
It’s like saying, “Boy it’s great there’s no traffic today,” just before you round the I-70 corner into Idaho Springs — and into a traffic jam.
In the travel industry, they call this a “shoulder” season. In fashion, it’s “bridge.” In food, it’s a tough one: Nothing at all is in season, so you’re dealing with a bunch of brown and gray ingredients.
But that doesn’t mean you need to eat boring brown and gray food.
To prove it, we turn to the goddess of Italian cooking, Marcella Hazan, and her brilliant 1992 cookbook, “Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking,” for this perfect, colorful bridge/shoulder season soup, which recalls the vibrant hues of the Italian flag and the chilly late-winter winds in the hills of Tuscany.
Minestrina Tricolore: Potato Soup with Carrots and Celery
Adapted from “Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking,” by Marcella Hazan (Knopf). Serves 4 to 6
Ingredients
1 1/2 pounds potatoes
2 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
3 tablespoons onion, chopped fine
3 tablespoons carrot, chopped fine
3 tablespoons celery, chopped fine
5 tablespoons freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, plus additional cheese at the table
1 cup milk
2 cups homemade meat broth, or 1/2cup canned beef broth diluted with 1 1/2 cups water
Salt
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
Crostini (fried or toasted bread squares)
Directions
Peel the potatoes, rinse them in cold water and cut them into small pieces. Put them in a soup pot with just enough cold water to cover, put a lid on the pot and turn on the heat to medium high. Boil the potatoes until they are tender, then puree them, with their liquid, through the large holes of a food mill back into the pot. Set aside.
Put the butter, oil and chopped onion in a skillet and turn on the heat to medium. Saute the onion until it becomes colored a pale gold. Add the chopped carrot and celery and cook for about 2 minutes, stirring the vegetables to coat them well. Don’t cook them long enough to become soft because you want them noticeably crisp in the soup.
Transfer the entire contents of the skillet to the pot with the potatoes. Turn on the heat to medium and add the grated cheese, milk and broth. Stir and cook at a steady simmer for several minutes until the cooking fat floating on the surface is dispersed throughout the soup. Don’t let the soup become thicker than cream in consistency. If that should happen, dilute it with equal parts of broth and milk. Taste and correct for salt.
Off heat, swirl in the chopped parsley, then ladle into individual plates or bowls. Serve with freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano and crostini on the side.
