Baked ribollita

Serves 6

Prep 20 min

Cook 1 hr 30 min

A Ribollita is a traditional bean and bread stew from Tuscany, oozing ultimate comfort in a very Italian way. Our take on it is baked in the oven like a lasagne, with a panzenella-esque topping for extra texture.
The power in this dish comes from the sofrito - which is the base made from slowly cooking the carrots, onions and celery. While this tastes great on the day of making, like all good slow cooked meals, it gets better after a day in the fridge, where textures soften but flavours ripen. Perfect for mid-week batch cooking.

Ingredients

120ml	olive oil, plus extra to serve
2	medium onions (360g), roughly chopped
4	celery stalks (340g), roughly chopped
4-5	carrots (320g), peeled and roughly chopped (300g)
4	garlic cloves, roughly chopped
3	rosemary sprigs, roughly chopped
3	thyme sprigs, roughly chopped
2	tins of tomatoes (800g)
1 tbsp	red wine vinegar
3	tins butter beans (1.2kg), washed and drained (720g)
700ml	good quality stock (chicken or vegetable will do)
6	slices of sourdough, 4 of which toasted
60g	parmesan, finely grated
150g	kale leaves, torn into rough 5cm pieces
	salt and black pepper

Method

Place the onions, celery and carrots in the bowl of a food processor and pulse until finely chopped. Place a large nonstick saucepan on a medium-high heat. Add 80ml of oil, the onion, celery and carrot, 1 teaspoon of salt and a good grind of pepper and fry for a couple minutes, stirring occasionally. Cover, turn the heat down to medium and cook for 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally, until softened. Add in the garlic and herbs and cook for 5 minutes. Crush the tomatoes and add to the pan with the vinegar and cook, uncovered, for 5 minutes until reduced. Add the beans and stock and leave to simmer for 10 to 15 minutes until it has the consistency of a thick soup.
Preheat the oven to 190°C.
Make the topping by tearing the two untoasted slices of bread into roughly 3cm pieces and add to a bowl together with 80g of kale, 30g of parmesan and remaining 40 ml of oil and mix well to coat.
Mix the remaining kale through the sauce and spoon half of the mix into a large 20x30cm baking dish. Cover with the 4 slices of toasted bread, followed by the remaining mix. Top with the kale and bread topping and lightly press into the mix. Bake for 25 minutes. Remove, sprinkle over the remaining parmesan and allow to settle for ten minutes. Serve with some extra olive oil drizzled over.