This Copycat Zuppa Toscana recipe is much better than Olive Garden

I spent less than an hour in the Olive Garden for less than an hour, and during my only visit last year, I went to the restaurant to try “Zuppa Toscana”, a customer favorite that I had long heard the moment never ate. I spent much more of my life in Tuscany, including a few months working on the farm in the Maremma Valley. For many years, I worked as a Sous chef for one of the world's authorities at the Tuscan cooking, Cesare Casella, former NYC restaurant, Beppe.

I can say confidently that I know a fair amount of Tuscan soups and how to make them. I have a lot of experience with the region's famous bread and bean soups, for example water swarmTo ribolliteTo Pappa with tomatoand oh, so many chickpeaNot to mention the Tuscan classics, such as Cacciucco packed with seafood, which most people in the states could not get out of the lineup. However, the majority of Americans are likely to identify Olive Garden Zuppa's Toscana, despite being soup, almost no Tuscan. So that's why I finally finally taste it; It may not be “real” Tuscan food, but that doesn't mean it can't be good.

Was it good? I can say confidently that Zuppa Toscana was the best thing I bought at the restaurant. But that doesn't say much. The soup was delicious and filling, but there was a lack of enthusiastic touch that could make you great. None of its components are mixed, not in taste and in texture, as it should be in such food. The important thing, however, is that the concept behind the soup is solid – a combination of sausages, kale and potatoes in a slightly creamy broth and can be great.

I don't need a genius to figure out how to deceive even better – it is richer, tastier and more integrated, all elements are in uniform harmony. Fennel-shaped pork sausage should be infused with taste and fat; Kale should be generous and gentle; The potatoes must go half into the broth, of course thickened, leaving small nubins left behind that melt in his mouth; The broth should be richer and creamier without transferring to a heavy area; And the whole thing must be quietly vibrating with the heat of the chile, like red chile flakes, spicy sausages or both.

Well done, it's a one-to-one that fills the stomach while comforting you with a sense of security and comfort.

The secrets of the right olive -garden -style Zuppa Toscana

Step 1: Steal the recipe of your colleague

As I sat at Zuppa Toscana in Olive Garden, my brain noted that he had taken concrete details and compiled the recipe theory that records these details but makes them better. However, slowly I had the feeling of eating this soup recently and then struck me: Genevieve recently creamy tortellini soup recipe– He picked up Reddit's “Upvote” soup – almost the same as Olive Garden Zuppa Toscana, with only a few critical changes. These are the following:

• The Upvote soup has a tortellini, Zuppa Toscana is not.
• The UPVote soup has a red paradicsap with paste and orange ingredients such as carrots; Zuppa Toscana is much whiter, no tomatoes or carrots.
• The UPVote soup is thickened with cream and flour, while Zuppa Toscana is thickened with cream and potato starch (although this is possible for Olive Garden's protected recipes for other complementary compressors).

I really believe I can't find the wheel again. I knew that the Genevote Upvote soup recipe contains the basic building blocks of Zuppa Toscana, and I knew I was eating the Genevieve's soup that it was very good. My mission, then (not ashamed to admit), was not to make a new recipe from scratch, but to adapt the Genevieve's recipe, working with the same fundamental proportions and steps, while the necessary settings were made to produce the improved Copycat Zuppa Toscana.

Some of the key steps in the original recipe of Genevieve I hold here are:

• Sausage tanning and fat. This is the taste of the Maillard reaction While delicious sausage produces flavored fat to merge the soup.
• Cooking onions, celery, fennel and garlic in sausage fat. These aromas form the taste of the soup and to roast the sausage fat to integrate the flavors.
• Floating spices such as fennel seeds and chile flakes in fat while aromas cook. Many flavor molecules, as well as capsaicin, which gives the chiles heat, are soluble in fat, so these dry ingredients are fried with the aromas in the sausage fat and pulled their taste and spice more fully and inserted into the soup.

All of this was the foundation of the soup. I set it with some additional stings.

Step 2: Use the “Grandma” potato method

I wrote about this The way of preparing the potato Before: This involves cutting off irregular pieces from potatoes, zuppa toscana in the case . These irregular pieces are slightly different, with corners and conical points.

This has an important effect on such a soup: thinner, index and smaller pieces of potato cooking faster than larger, wider pieces. With sufficient mixing, the over cooked parts of the potato fall into the soup, thickened with natural mashed potatoes and left the nice little potatoes.

This is an old school technique that offers wonderful results.

Step 3: Add Parm Shell (Optional)

All steps described above build on a full flavored broth, but we can do more. One of the simple ways to improve the quality of the soup is to use quality chickenWhether you are home -made or bought in store– Another is to trick one -two parmesan shells into the pot.

This is an optional step, but it is worth getting your hand on a shell. This should not be too difficult – a lot of cheese shops and cheese desks are cheap, which is a good way to make a little extra money for something else anyway. You can also save your own remaining peel, which is the most cost -effective approach.

And I have to add: I don't have to just be the Parmigiano-Reggiano peel. Grana padano peel, which is very similar to parmesan, gets the same good results.

After evaporating in the soup for a while, you can pull them out and discard them, jump them into the compost or like a hungry raccoon.

The last steps: Press the soup with cream, cut it into bowls and place it with grated parm at the table. I would like to think that a Tuscan would cook Zuppa Toscana if they did.

Cooking method
(Keep on the screen awake)

• 1 tablespoon (15 ml) virgin extra olive oil

• 1 1/2 pound (680 g) mild or spicy Italian sausageremoved from the house

• 2 medium onion (8 ounce; 227 g each), finely chopped

• 3 medium clove garlic (1/2 ounce; 15 g), finely chopped

• 3 medium celery ribs (about 5 3/4 ounce; 165 g) with leaves, finely chopped

• 1 medium fennel (8 ounce; 226 g), finely chopped

• 1 1/2 teaspoon fennel -seeds

• 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

• 10 cup (2.4 L) Homemade chicken kit or a shop bought in a low sodium soup

• 1 or 2 Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese shells (optional), plus Grated parmigiano-reggianoTo serve

• 6 ounce (170 g) lacinato or curly kaledestroyed, cut or roughly 2 -inch pieces

• 1 russet potato (12 ounce; 340 g), peeled and cut into irregular pieces for approx. 1/2 inches thick (read This is the potato cutting method For more details)

• 1/2 cup (120 ml) heavy cream

1. Heat the olive oil on medium heat in a 5 quartet soup or in a Dutch oven until glittering. Add sausage and cook, stirring to disrupt the meat and the bottom of the dish until they are browned for 6-8 minutes. Remove the sausage from the pot using a slotted spoon; Set aside. If the meat is given excessive amount of fat, use metal or other heat-safe spoon and remain 2-3 tablespoons in the pot. (If, on the other hand They soften and release some moisture, approx. 8 minutes.

2. Slowly pour a kit or broth with the parmesan shell (s) (ha). Boil over medium to high heat. Add kale and cook until the kale is slightly softened, approx. 10 minutes.

3. Add the potatoes and continue steaming, stirring occasionally until the kale will not be very gentle and the potatoes are completely cooked and the outer part is descended (the potatoes are rounded and smaller and the soup should be thickened with the liberated potato starch ), approx. For 30 minutes (if the potatoes slowly wear out, stir to agitate and help).

4. It returns the sausage to the soup and cooked until the flavors melted and approx. For 10 minutes, the excess fat is put together. Remove the soup from the heat and mix the heavy cream. Season the tasting with salt and pepper; If the soup is too thin, thin, with additional warm sets until the proper consistency reaches. Divide it into bowls and serve grated Parmigiano-Reggiano to sprinkle it on top.

Special equipment

5- or 6 quarters of soup or Dutch oven

Make-Head and Storage

The residue can be cooled in an airtight container for up to 4 days. Carefully heat the soup in a container of medium to low heat until it heats up and served.