Veal Soup with Asparagus and Pancetta

How to prepare veal soup with asparagus and pancetta

1. Start by preparing the base broth. For this recipe you need 5 cups of broth. It can be prepared in advance or you can even use frozen broth. What matters is having a concentrated and flavorful base broth, made with quality meat (organic or farm-raised). From my veal I got more broth than needed for this recipe—I froze the rest for sauces/stews.
2. How to make a concentrated base broth: wash the bones and meat well in several changes of water until the water runs clear. Place in a pot (cut into pieces if needed—for example, ribs can be separated if they come together...). Add water to cover them, then add enough to go 2-3 fingers above. For the amount of bones I used (listed in ingredients), I added 10 cups of water.
3. Bring the pot to a boil, then lower the heat so it barely simmers. This way the broth will stay clear. A gray foam will form on top—skim it off whenever necessary... generally it will keep forming during the first hour, then the broth will stay clean. Also wipe the sides of the pot clean of foam with a paper towel.
4. When the broth barely produces any foam, add the celeriac cut into large pieces, sage, and 1 teaspoon of peppercorns. Also add salt (add 1 teaspoon now, then taste and add more toward the end of cooking until it's to your liking). Let it simmer for at least one more hour—I usually go toward 2 hours. If the broth reduces too quickly, you can put a lid slightly ajar. At the end, the broth should be nicely colored (golden-brown for beef/veal; golden for chicken) and smell very pleasant.
5. Strain the broth through cheesecloth (triple layer) to make it even clearer.
6. For today's soup, proceed as follows: in a pot, heat the oil and sauté the diced onion until very soft (5-10 minutes). Add the base broth and sage and bring to a boil.
8. Add the rice and bring back to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer until the rice is fully cooked but not mushy—it's safer to leave it al dente now, as it will continue to swell.
9. While the rice cooks, fry the pancetta in a pan without fat until crispy and it has rendered its fat into the pan. Break it into pieces if the slices were very long.
10. Taste the soup for salt and add if needed. Add the asparagus cut into bite-sized pieces (one-bite), but leave the tips with florets whole—they look nice in the soup. Let it cook for 1 minute.
11. Add the fried pancetta along with all the oil from the pan and cook for 1 more minute. Grind plenty of black pepper at this stage and taste for salt and pepper.
12. Let the soup rest for 5-10 minutes, then you can serve it. The texture is best immediately because the rice and asparagus keep their texture, but it's also fine after sitting—the flavor will actually intensify pleasantly from the pancetta.

Print