Minestrone is a thick Italian soup made with fresh vegetables and pasta, rice, or beans.

There is no one set recipe for minestrone, since it is usually made out of whatever vegetables are in season, and it can be vegetarian or contain meat. In some regions, donkey meat is added.

A Condiment for Seasoning Minestrone

Ingredients: Onions, celery, carrots, butter, salt, stock, tomatoes, mushrooms.

Cut up an onion, a stick of celery, and a carrot; fry them in butter and salt; add a few bits of cooked ham and veal cut up, two mushrooms, and the pulp of a tomato. Cook for a quarter of an hour, and add a little stock occasionally to keep it moist. Pass through a sieve, and use for seasoning minestre, macaroni, rice, &c. It should be added when the dish is nearly cooked.

Source: The Cook's Decameron: A Study In Taste, Containing Over Two Hundred Recipes For Italian Dishes from a project that puts out-of-copyright texts into the public domain. This is from a *very* old source, and reflects the cooking at the turn of the last century. Update as necessary.

External links

• Italian food (http://www.italianfoodforever.com/iff/news.asp?id=439)
• Minestrone recipe (with photo) (http://www.mediterrasian.com/delicious_recipes_minestrone.htm)