Hot and satisfying acquacotta (literally ‘cooked water’) is a traditional Italian tomato and bread soup, originally made with garlic, stale bread and onion. Today it’s most often made with tomatoes and celery and served with fried or poached eggs.
Ingredients:
1 large onion
3 garlic cloves
3 sticks of celery
1 carrot
1 small chilli pepper
400g canned peeled tomatoes
1500ml hot water
1 bay leaf
1 sprig of fresh thyme
1 tsp dried basil and
1 tsp dried parsley
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Olive oil
4 slices of stale bread
4 eggs
Parmesan cheese
Serves four
Preheat the oven to 170 C. Peel the onions, garlic and carrot, wash the celery and chilli, and dice all the vegetables. Mash the peeled tomatoes in a bowl roughly with a fork.
Heat the oil in a large iron pot and gently sauté the onion and garlic for 5 minutes until softened. Stir in the celery, carrot and chilli and sauté for 10 more minutes. Add the tomatoes, hot water, bay leaf, thyme, basil and parsley and season well with salt and pepper. Stir well, close the lid and cook in the oven for about 2 hours.
When the soup is almost ready, toast the bread slices, rub them with a clove of garlic and tear them into pieces with your hands, distributing the bread at the bottom of four soup bowls.
Heat some oil in a large frying pan and fry the eggs, seasoned with salt and pepper, for 1 to 1 1/2 minutes or until the egg white has solidified and set.
Pour the soup into the soup bowls over the bread slices, put an egg in the centre of each bowl and top with grated Parmesan. Serve hot. Buon appetito!
Jurgita Vaskel is a food blogger. Visit her blog at duonosirzaidimu.wordpress.com
