Italian Wedding Soup
Clear chicken broth with tiny browned meatballs, small pasta, spinach and carrots, finished with Parmesan.
Recipe in testing: I'm cooking it in my TM7™ and will update the steps and the photo with my own.
Italian wedding soup has nothing to do with weddings: the name comes from the Italian minestra maritata, married soup, because the greens and the meat go so well together. In Italian-American kitchens it became this light, clear chicken broth with tiny meatballs, little pasta, spinach and a snowfall of Parmesan.
The Thermomix® TM7™ grates the Parmesan and mixes the meatballs, which brown in the oven while you wash the bowl. Then the broth, carrots and pasta cook together on reverse at soft speed, and the meatballs and spinach go in for the last few minutes, so everything stays whole.
Made in the Thermomix® TM7™
Italian Wedding Soup
Makes: 4 servings, about 40 small meatballs
- Prep25 min
- Cook40 min
- Total1 h 5 min
- Serves4
Ingredients
For the meatballs
For the soup
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 200°C (400°F) and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Place the Parmesan in the mixing bowl and grate 10 sec/speed 10. Take out half and set it aside for serving.
- Add the bread, garlic and parsley to the Parmesan in the bowl and chop 5 sec/speed 7.
- Add the milk, egg, salt, pepper and ground meat and mix 20 sec/reverse/speed 3, until just combined. Roll into small balls of about 2 cm (3/4 in), about 10 g each, and place them on the baking sheet.
- Bake in the oven for 12 to 14 minutes, until browned and 71°C (160°F) in the center. Meanwhile, wash the mixing bowl.
- Place the onion and garlic in the mixing bowl and chop 3 sec/speed 5. Scrape down the sides, add the olive oil and sauté 3 min/120°C (250°F)/speed 1.
- Add the carrots and broth and cook 8 min/100°C (212°F)/speed 1, until boiling.
- Add the pasta and cook 9 min/100°C (212°F)/reverse/speed soft, or the time on the package.
- Add the meatballs and spinach, push the leaves down into the broth with the spatula and cook 3 min/100°C (212°F)/reverse/speed soft.
- Taste for salt and pepper and serve with the reserved Parmesan on top.
Tips
- The pasta keeps drinking broth as the soup sits. If you plan on leftovers, cook the pasta separately in a pot on the stove and add it to each bowl.
- Make ahead: the baked meatballs keep 2 days in the fridge or 3 months in the freezer. Add them frozen in step 8 and cook 6 minutes instead of 3.
- Swap the spinach for chopped escarole or kale, the greens used in many Italian homes. Kale needs 5 minutes in step 8.
