The first recipe during the workshop with Chef Wan was Minestrone Beefball Soup with Simplot Popcorn Hashbrown. Minestrone is a word originating from Italy and is literally translated as ‘big soup’. Minestrone soup is a thick soup of Italian origin made with vegetables, often with the addition of pasta or rice. Common ingredients include beans, onions, celery, carrots, stock, and tomatoes.

Here’s Chef Wan, preparing the his version of Minestrone soup.

And here’s the handmade beefballs, to be added into the soup.

This is how the final product of the minestrone soup…

We were given the opportunity to have taste of it during the workshop, and it was really marvellous, and so, here’s sharing the recipe with all of you out there. perhaps you can try it out yourself at home. You’d love it, I assure you.

Ingredients for Minestrone soup:

1/4cup of olive oil
1 large red onion, diced
6 garlic cloves, chopped
1 zucchini, diced
1 tin of baked beans, tossed
1 cube chicken stock bullion
1 red and green chilli each, diced
1 Italian tomato, crushed
4 tablespoon of Leggo’s Tomato Puree
1 bunch of parsley, chopped
1 tablespoon of dried oregano
6 thyme leaves, chopped
2 bay leaves
2 slices of white bread, soaked in milk then tossed
Sugar, salt and coarse black pepper to taste

Ingredients for beefballs:

Minched meat bread balls
300 grams of minched meat
Salt and pepper to taste

20 Simplot Popcorn Hashbrown, fried

Here’s how you make Minestrone Beefball Soup with Simplot Popcorn Hashbrowns:

1. Firstly, heat olive oil in the pan. Then sautee the onion and garlic til fragrant.
2. Add in zucchini, carrot, baked beans, chicken stock, chilli, tomato and herbs. Reduce heat to medium and simmer for 20 minutes to soften the vegetables and proceed to work on the beefballs.
3. To prepare minched meat bread balls, combine minced meat, salt, pepper and white bread soaked in milk. Mix well and roll into balls. Fry it til golden brown and put in minched meat bread balls into the soup.
4. Add in salt, sugar and coarse black pepper to taste and leave to simmer for 2 hours.
5. After two hours, serve the soup with Simplot Popcorn Hashbrowns on top.

Preparation time: 20 mins

Cooking time: 2 hours

Yield: 4-6 servings

Minestrone soup is a very good way to get your picky little ones to take veggies, don’t you think? I certainly think so. My boys loved this soup, and I think your loved ones will like this too.

Cleffairy: Up in the next post is Baked seafood casserole with Simplot Hashbrown recipe. Stay tune for more.