🇫🇷 France · Corsica
Corsican soup (soupe corse)
A Corsican bean and vegetable soup, a staple of daily eating, flavoured with figatellu or a ham bone and often with pasta.
Origin and history
Soup was the core of the daily Corsican diet until the mid-20th century. Each region and season had its own, of pulses or fresh vegetables, with meat or fish, often thickened with bread, rice or pasta. The bean soup known as a minestra, soupe corse or soupe paysanne was often the whole evening meal, followed by cheese and fruit. It remains a home dish, cooked differently in every village and seldom found in restaurants.
Make it at home
- Makes
- 6–8 servings
- Total time
- 3 h
- Hands-on
- 40 min
Ingredients
- 250 g9 oz (1 1/3 cups) dried beans: red kidney, pink (borlotti) or white beans, soaked overnight in cold water
- 3 tbsp olive oil
- 1 onion, chopped
- 1 leek, white and pale green part, sliced
- 3 cloves garlic, sliced
- 150 g5 oz panzetta (Corsican cured pork belly) or unsmoked pancetta, in small dice
- 1 prisuttu (Corsican ham) bone or other cured ham bone, with some meat on it, or a piece of ham hock
- 2 L2 qt water
- 250 g9 oz ripe tomatoes, peeled and chopped (or 2 tbsp tomato paste)
- 2 carrots, sliced
- 1 sprig each bay leaf, thyme and a little fresh marjoram or sage, tied together
- 2 (about 400 g)2 (about 14 oz) floury potatoes, peeled, in chunks
- 1/4 head (about 300 g)1/4 head (about 10 oz) green cabbage, shredded
- 2–3 leaves Swiss chard (blettes), chopped, stalks included
- 80 g3 oz short pasta or broken spaghetti, optional
- salt and black pepper, to taste, at the end
- grated hard sheep's cheese and good olive oil, to serve, optional
Method
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1. The day before, cover the beans generously with cold water and leave them to soak.
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2. In a large heavy pot, warm the olive oil over medium-low heat and soften the onion, leek and garlic for 6–8 minutes without browning.
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3. Add the panzetta and let it give up some of its fat for 2–3 minutes.
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4. Add the drained beans, the ham bone, the tomatoes, the carrots, the herbs and the 2 L (2 qt) of cold water, and bring slowly to the boil.
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5. Skim, cover partly and simmer gently for about 1 hour 30 minutes, until the beans are almost tender; do not salt yet.
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6. Add the potatoes, cabbage and chard, plus a little hot water if the soup has become too thick to stir.
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7. Simmer for 45 minutes to 1 hour more, until the beans are creamy and the potatoes start to break apart at the edges.
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8. Lift out the ham bone and the herbs; pull off any meat, chop it and return it to the pot.
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9. If using pasta, add it now and cook for 10–12 minutes, until tender; the soup should be thick, almost spoon-standing.
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10. Taste and season with salt (carefully, the cured pork is salty) and pepper; let the soup rest off the heat for 10 minutes before serving.
Notes
- Total time: 3 h, plus overnight soaking.
- In Corsica this is simply 'a minestra' or 'a suppa', and every village and every household makes it differently. The constants are dried beans, onions and carrots, cooked long with a piece of cured pork; the vegetables follow the garden and the season (cabbage and chard in winter, courgettes and green beans in summer).
- Figatellu, the Corsican smoked pork-liver sausage of the winter season, is often sliced into the pot instead of, or with, the ham bone, giving the soup a stronger, smoky flavour.
- Many cooks crush a ladleful of beans and potato against the side of the pot to thicken it. Pasta is common but not universal; some cooks add it only when reheating the soup.
- Outside Corsica, any good cured ham bone, smoked ham hock or pancetta works; without figatellu or prisuttu the soup loses some of its smoky depth.
- It is traditionally eaten as a substantial first course or a supper in itself, followed by cheese and fruit, with bread on the side. Like all bean soups it is better the next day and keeps 3 days refrigerated.
- Close relatives are Italian minestrone and the Tuscan bean soups across the water; the Corsican soup is distinguished by its cured Corsican pork and its thickness.
Adapted from Clark Z. Terry, Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant (Inspiring Thirst blog): Minestra – Traditional Corsican Soup, Dana Facaros and Michael Pauls, French Food Decoder: Soupe corse, and 750g: Soupe corse traditionnelle.
At the festivals
Served at 2 festivals in France.
Earlier editions
- January 25, 2025
- November 14, 2015