Minestrone

Cut the onion, carrots and celery to an even 5mm dice, small enough that they soften into the broth rather than sit in it as chunks.

Warm the olive oil in a wide heavy pan over medium-low heat.

Add the diced onion, carrot and celery — the soffritto, the aromatic base softened slowly in fat that a great many Italian soups and sauces are built on — and turn them through the oil.

Stir in 3g of the fine salt, which pulls the water out of the vegetables and keeps them from catching.

Cook for 15-20 minutes, stirring every few minutes, until the vegetables have collapsed to about half their volume, turned glossy and taken the faintest gold at the edges.

Give the soffritto that whole stretch before anything else goes in. Tipping every vegetable into the pan at once floods it with water, nothing browns at all, and the finished soup tastes thin and flat however long it simmers afterwards.

Stir in the garlic and cook for 1 minute, until it smells sweet.

Add the tomato puree and cook for 2 minutes, stirring constantly, until it darkens from bright red to brick.

Pour in the crushed tomatoes and simmer for 5 minutes, until they no longer smell raw.

Pour in the hot stock. A batch of the chicken stock in this collection fills this pan with 500ml to spare.

Drop in the parmesan rind and the bay leaves. The rind softens as it simmers and gives up a savoury depth that grated cheese stirred in at the end does not.

Add the beans.

Bring to a gentle simmer and cook uncovered for 20 minutes, until the broth has darkened and tastes of more than stock.

Add the courgette and the shredded cabbage.

Simmer for 8 minutes, until the cabbage is tender and still dark green.

Stir in the pasta and cook for 8-10 minutes, or as long as the packet says, until it is soft rather than al dente — it goes on drinking broth in the bowl.

Crush a ladleful of the beans against the side of the pan with the back of a spoon, which thickens the broth without any flour.

Fish out the bay leaves and whatever is left of the rind.

Season with the remaining 3g of fine salt and the ground peppercorns.

Taste and correct the salt, bearing in mind how the stock was seasoned.

Tear the basil in off the heat, since it blackens in a simmering pan within a minute.

Ladle into bowls.

Finish each bowl with the grated parmesan and a thread of extra virgin olive oil.

Serve with thick slices of bread. The no-knead sourdough focaccia in this collection has the crumb for it.

Expect it to thicken overnight as the pasta keeps drinking, and loosen it with hot stock or water when reheating rather than serving it as a stew.

Spread whatever is left into a shallow container rather than leaving it to cool in the deep pan, where two litres of soup holds its heat for hours.

Refrigerate it within two hours of the pan coming off the heat and use it within three days.

Bring it back to a full simmer when you reheat it rather than warming it through.