Broccoli Rabe and Garlic Soup

I love soup, and I love being able to make a big pot of it to get me through the week. A recipe on the Epicurious web site for broccoli rabe soup in a garlic broth most recently caught my attention so I decided to give it a try.

I started out by following the original recipes, but the one for garlic broth just wasn't working so I made it my own. Here are the links to the original recipes: Garlic Broth, Broccoli Rabe Soup.
Below are directions for what I did.

Note - you'll need 3 heads of garlic. Yes, heads, not just cloves. Peeling and slicing the garlic is time consuming, but so worth it. Look at all this garlic!




My Ingredients

• 3 heads of garlic
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 8 cups of water
• 2 14.5 oz cans of vegetable broth (I used one garden vegetable and one regular)
• Juice from 1 32 oz can of whole tomatoes (you could also add the tomatoes to the soup, but I didn't; I think it would need more broth if you did)
• 1 bunch broccoli rabe, washed, stems removed, cut into 1-2 inch pieces
• 1/2 cup small pasta (I used ditalini but will probably omit it next time or cook it separately; it soaked up too much of the broth)
• 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• Grated Parmesan cheese for serving

My Directions

• Peel all of the garlic, remove the green germ in the middle, and chop into quarters
• Heat olive oil in a large pot over low heat; add garlic
• Simmer the garlic for 20 minutes stirring often, and being careful not to let it brown
• Add the water; simmer on medium-low heat for 30 minutes
• Add the red pepper flakes, salt, pepper, broth and tomato juice, bring to a boil; reduce to a simmer and allow it to reduce a bit
• At this point you can either put the broth away to make the soup later, or you can continue (I made this recipe over 2 nights). This is what it looked like:

To finish the soup:

• Bring the broth to a boil; add pasta; cook for 6 minutes
• Add broccoli rabe, return to a boil and cook for 4 minutes
• Serve hot; you can sprinkle some Parmesan cheese into each bowl if you wish

The Final Product...

I LOVED this soup. It was extremely flavorful and soothing - great if you have a cold or are just trying to keep warm in the cold weather. I was surprised that the garlic wasn't too strong. Instead it was soft and sweet and just delicious.

I cannot imagine how bland this soup would have been if I followed the original recipe. The changes I made were perfect. I will definitely make this again! Next time I either won't use pasta or I'll cook it separately. When I got the soup out for lunch today, the pasta had soaked up a lot of the broth. I'd rather add the pasta to each bowl to avoid this.