and Rum Bar keep the spirit alive — literally.
"I thought, 'That's the move!'"So, Leonti bought some large cleavers in Chinatown and a wood butcher block, and set up a soffritto station in the kitchen, where his cooks rhythmically chopped and broke down the whole vegetables into rubble using the same kind of chopping technique I saw a barbecue cook use at Skylight Inn BBQ in Ayden, North Carolina, to break down the meat of whole smoked hogs into a fine mince.
The size of the mince matters — the smaller the better — Leonti says, because you're multiplying the surface area of the vegetables by a thousandfold.More surface area to caramelize in the pan equals more flavor..When I made Leonti's ribollita at home in my Birmingham, Alabama, kitchen, I tried the double-cleaver technique, but quickly switched to an efficient, two-handled mezzaluna after too many stray bits of onion, carrot, and celery fell to the kitchen floor.
I followed his advice and sweated the vegetables in olive oil in a Dutch oven, slowly cooking the mixture, stirring almost as often with a wooden spoon as you would with a roux.I then turned up the heat until I heard that rapid sizzle, signaling that the soffritto was beginning to caramelize, creating a massive amount of flavor.
When you build flavor from the bottom of the pot like this, the flavors continue to transform, concentrating even further when you add then reduce aromatic liquids — in Leonti's case, adding crushed tomatoes and white wine, which cook down to a tomato-wine-soffritto jam full of umami.
That flavor base gets rehydrated with water, then cooks down again with the kale and bread — the latter adds tangy flavor and disintegrates into the soup to add texture.Just like you would with, say,.
, you'll first cook the pork chops in a cast-iron skillet, and then, add butter, herbs, and (in this case) Thai chiles to the pan.As the chops continue to cook, you'll spoon the butter mixture over them, ensuring that the meat will stay juicy.
packed with flavor.They'll be ready to eat in under an hour—pair them with.