A wonderful recipe from my favorite cookbook author, Barbara Kafka. Easy but so “gourmet”. I love this. To make this soup even easier, you can use store bought pesto with the canned beans and skip to step 6, combining pureed beans with your store bought pesto.
Ingredients: [‘dried black beans’, ‘fresh basil’, ‘garlic cloves’, ‘olive oil’, ‘vegetable broth’, ‘kosher salt’, ‘fresh basil’]
Quantity of Ingredients: [“1 lb dried black beans (soaked according to package directions) or 6 cups canned black beans (rinsed and drained)”,”2 bunches fresh basil, large, leaves only, washed well “,”6 garlic cloves, medium, smashed and peeled “,”1/2 cup olive oil”,”3 1/2 cups chicken stock or 3 1/2 cups water”,”1 tablespoon kosher salt”,”1/4 cup fresh basil, coarsely chopped, for serving “]
Number of Servings: 6
Steps: [‘~~If using dried beans,~~ in a medium saucepan, combine the beans with water to cover by 2 inches.’, ‘Bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer, partially covered, for 1 hour or until the beans are very soft and beginning to burst.’, ‘Remove from heat.’, ‘In a blender, puree the basil, garlic and 1/4 cup olive oil.’, ‘In a food processor, working in batches if necessary, puree the cooked beans with their liquid (about 3 cups), or ~~ if using canned beans~~, puree with the 3 1/2 cups broth, stock or water.’, ‘Scrape back into the saucepan (or canned beans, scrape into medium saucepan) and stir in the pesto and salt.’, ‘Heat through.’, ‘Swirl in the remaining olive oil.’, ‘Top each serving with a little chopped basil.’]