Daz Switalla Flavour Secrets No.1 The Strand Chef www.no1thestrand.co.nz

The much maligned minestrone, which means ‘big soup', has no set recipe as it can be made of everything but the kitchen sink.

This means using vegetables that are in season, scraps of leftover meats, pasta, rice, beans, all tied together with a tomato base.

I usually use some salami or ham as a meat garnish in my base and prefer rice shaped pasta or some of the speciality pastas that you can get for soup.

The idea of buying this soup already made or as a instant packet soup conflicts with this cornerstone of Italian cuisine, cucina provera, meaning poor kitchen: basic home-made soup; rich, thick and rustic - another one pot wonder. As I observed myself in Italy, minestrone was always accompanied by a grating of fresh Parmigiana and thick crusty village bread.

The closest thing you would get here would be Flaveur breads Maunganui Gold, with its fantastic rusticity and favour. The bread I sampled with this week's minestrone recipe is potato and rosemary, a bread with just a fantastic balance of Agria potato, fresh rosemary and Nigella seeds. These seeds give this bread that nutty, slightly oniony, herbaceous taste that lingers after every mouthful.

This bread would also be fantastic with a lamb casserole. The slow fermentation method used in this bread produces malolactic acid, which makes it easier to digest.

Minestrone

Serves four+

Ingredients

2 cans 200g crushed tomatoes

1tablespoon tomato paste

1 litre water

1 large onion, chopped

1 clove garlic

1 leek

½ cabbage, chopped

1 carrot, chopped

1 cup pearl barley

A few slices pepperoni salami, cut into strips

1 cup diced ham

1 cup broken spaghetti strips or orzo type pasta

Fresh chopped parsley

2 tablespoons olive oil

Salt and pepper

Grated Parmesan cheese

Method

Sauté the onion, carrots, ham and salami in the olive oil, finally adding the leek and garlic, as they tend to burn. Add the tomato paste then stir in the chopped tomato, water and the remaining ingredients. Bring to a simmer, stirring the bottom to make shore it doesn't stick. After 40 minutes or so the soup will become thicker and thicker once all the pearl barley and pasta have swelled up. Now you can stir in Parmesan and season with salt and pepper and it's ready to serve with your Flaveur bread.