Passport & Plate - Nannu's Soup
Australia | Friday, March 14, 2014 | 5 photos
Ingredients
To make Nannu’s Soup for about 4 (or two very hungry people!), you’ll need*:
o 4 – 6 chicken drumsticks
o 1 large brown onion
o 2 large carrots, peeled
o 2 large zucchinis
o 3 large sticks of celery, white ends removed
o 3 medium potatoes, peeled
o 2 tablespoons of tomato paste
o About a third of a packet of thin spaghetti
o Olive oil
o Salt and pepper to taste
* Note: This recipe is all about taste and preference, not exact measurements. If you don’t like a vegetable, substitute it for something similar. If you like your soup thin, add more water, or less if the opposite. Nannu liked his soup very salty, but if you’re watching your salt intake, you might want to add a little less.
How to prepare this recipeStart by dicing all the vegetables (onion, carrots, zucchini, celery and potato) into equal 1x1cm cubes. For this to be a proper Nannu’s Soup, you’ll need to be meticulous!
Pop the chicken drumsticks in a heavy base pan and fry on medium heat in a generous amount of olive oil. You want them to keep going until the skin is browned and crispy. Then turn down the heat a little and add the chopped onion, carrots and celery and mix it all up for about five minutes, or until the vegetables start to soften.
Cover the drumsticks, onion, carrots and celery with boiling water. Depending on how many drumsticks you added and the size of your vegetables, you may need to add more or less than 2 cups. You want enough broth to add the remaining vegetables and spaghetti into later, so be sure there is a generous amount on top. Add a heaped teaspoon of salt and the tomato paste and mix well. The broth should form a deep orange colour. Bring the soup to a boil and then simmer for at least an hour, but longer if you can manage. You want the chicken to be falling off the bone and the vegetables to be nice and soft.
Add the potato and zucchini cubes, and simmer for a further half an hour, or until soft. Then break the spaghetti sticks into roughly 2-inch pieces, and mix them through the soup. Simmer until the spaghetti is al dente. Meanwhile, take the chicken drumsticks out of the broth and use a fork to gently pull the meat from the bone. Add the boneless chicken back into the soup.
Serve in bowls, ensuring everybody has a little chicken, a lot of veggies and some spaghetti. Add salt and pepper to taste. Enjoy with a generous side of crusty Italian bread (or similar), perfect for mopping up the hearty, orangey broth that sticks to the sides of the bowl…
The story behind this recipeJoseph William Grech was born on June 23 1927 in Malta. In 1950, he embarked on the six-week boat trip to Australia with his wife and soul mate, Maria. Joseph and Maria – my Nannu and Nunna – had six children, 20 grandchildren (including me!) and now 15 great-grandchildren.
Ever since I can remember, we would visit Nannu and Nunna on Sunday afternoons in their small, red brick home. We lost Nunna when I was five, so my memories of Sundays are mostly of visiting Nannu. Nannu would make his distinctive chicken and vegetable soup, and everyone who visited would bring something to contribute. I remember the first time I baked rice pudding, and my pride when there was a squabble for the last piece. The food was abundant and multicultural; with Australian, Dutch, Filipino, Italian and Polish cuisines introduced by our partners or friends. But the welcoming familiarity of Nannu’s Soup was constant. You could smell the simmering, salty broth as soon as he opened the door, smiling, taking your face in his hands and kissing your cheek. When I hadn’t visited for a while, I missed the hearty smell, meticulously cubed vegetables, tender chicken, and rich, red broth of Nannu’s Soup. As with all good food, regardless of its simplicity and (little) expense, his soup felt completely nourishing, physically and emotionally. Over Nannu’s Soup our family celebrated news of engagements and pregnancies and introduced boyfriends and girlfriends in his small dining room, sometimes spilling into the kitchen and living areas. In summer we’d relocate outside, where the cousins would play bocce, the aunties gossiped and the uncles talked politics.
Nannu died three years ago. The Sunday evenings stopped and the ebb and flow of life has since swept our family with it. We’ve tried to replicate Nannu’s Soup but it never tastes quite the same – perhaps what is missing is his generous love, which made everything he cooked taste better than even the fanciest food.
