IN THE KITCHEN : Can This Soup Be Saved?

There’s exactly one hour before guests arrive for dinner and the soup isn’t far removed from water and the pie crust falls apart when I try to roll it out. At times like these, two questions come to mind: How in the heck did I get into this mess? And how am I going to get out?

The first is a lot easier to answer than the second. All of this is happening because I broke one of the oldest rules in cooking: “Thou shalt not attempt for company a dish thou hast never fixed before.”

It’s one of those things that has been repeated so often, it’s almost engraved in stone. I myself have probably written it at least a couple of hundred times. But then again, if we journalists were as good at taking advice as we are at giving it, one of us would surely have been elected president by now.

So, you can probably say it serves me right that the dried beans that were supposed to be completely cooked in 45 minutes are still slightly chalky after four hours. And when I ground the battuto in the food processor rather than finely mincing the pancetta and vegetables by hand, you can also say I deserve to have a flavoring base that resembles baby food more closely than something mama would make. And, of course, there are those of you who will sneer when I complain that rolling out a delicate pie dough in this super-heated kitchen (in my by-now super-heated state of mind) is like working with wet Kleenex.

You’re so right: I have it coming. Mea maxima culpa.

But, as they say inside the Beltway, let’s not play the blame game. Besides, while I may certainly deserve the embarrassment of having to serve this kind of meal, do my guests--all of them innocent--deserve having to eat it?

So, having created this mess, how do I get out of it?

Start with the soup (after sticking the pie dough back into the freezer to chill). It’s a minestrone with cabbage and white beans from one of my favorite cookbooks, “Trattoria Cooking,” by Biba Caggiano (MacMillan: $25). Having finished the beans, you puree half of them back into the soup to thicken it. The remaining beans are the only texture in the soup and, in this case, it just isn’t thick enough.

I had doubled the recipe, so there would be some leftovers to serve later in the week as ribollita-- a really popular second-day use of minestrone (at least in Tuscany): Stale bread is added to the soup and the whole is re-boiled (hence the name) into a nice, thick tomatoey mush. One thing we always have on hand at my house is plenty of stale bread--there isn’t a good bakery in the neighborhood, so when I get to one I invariably buy too much, and when I get home, I never seem to remember to freeze it.

So, I think to myself, why wait until tomorrow? Why not make a first-day ribollita (or would that be simply bollita )? I scatter toasted bread slices over the bottom of a cast-iron Dutch oven, then sprinkle on some freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano (another basic rule of cooking: There is very little that a good Parmigiano won’t fix). I ladle over soup to cover and repeat the process until I’ve reached the top of the pan. I cover it and stick it in the oven to keep warm and go to work on the pie.

The pie is supposed to be double-crusted and filled with stewed fall fruits. It is supposed to be baked in a tart tin with a removable bottom. There are a couple of problems. First, I can’t find my tart tin. In fact, it occurs to me that I don’t remember seeing it since I moved--a year and a half ago. Which leads me neatly into the second problem: I almost never make pies anymore. I’m not sure why, but dessert is something we don’t eat very often in our house, and when we do, it’s more likely to be cake. (That’s the exact opposite of how it used to be, when I lived at an altitude of nearly 6,000 feet and the very idea of making something with baking powder was enough to give me the shakes.)

So the first trick is finding something to bake the pie in. It has to have removable sides, because this dough has a fairly high percentage of sugar and if left to cool in a normal pan, it would soon become one with it. The only thing that fits the bill is a high-sided springform, which gives me an idea: Since the dough is too soft and my technique too rusty to roll out, how about making it “deep dish,” with only one crust? The filling (quinces, red flame raisins and prunes) is pretty enough to be served open-faced.

I pull the dough from the freezer and begin pinching off chunks and patching them over the bottom and a couple of inches up the side of the springform. I add some quince jam to the fruit mixture to give it more volume, then spread that in the tart. After baking, it is beautiful--a nice country combination of roughly formed brown crust and deep red filling, just right with a scoop of vanilla ice cream (the sweet equivalent fix-it of Reggiano).

Some Italian cold cuts from a good deli, along with a pinzimonio of celery and fennel served with olive oil, and a fresh goat cheese are waiting when the guests arrive. Then comes the soup. Fresh-crop walnuts, flowery Muscat grapes and a hunk of cheese finish off the Chianti. Then comes dessert. Everyone leaves happy.

I wish I could promise it won’t happen again.

*

FIRST-DAY RIBOLLITA

1/2 pound dried cannellini or Great Northern beans, soaked overnight 3 quarts water 1/4 pound pancetta, cubed 1 medium carrot, cut in sections 1 rib celery, cut in sections 1 medium onion, quartered 1/4 cup Italian parsley 2 tablespoons fresh rosemary 3 cloves garlic 2 tablespoons oil 1/2 pound Napa cabbage, thinly sliced 4 cups canned plum tomatoes, with juice 1/2 loaf round Italian bread, sliced and toasted 1 1/2 cups grated Parmigiano-Reggiano

In soup pot, cover beans with water and bring to boil. Reduce heat to bare simmer and cook until beans are tender but not broken. With slotted spoon, remove half of beans from pot and run through fine plate of food mill into soup pot to thicken soup.

While beans are cooking, combine pancetta, carrot, celery, onion, parsley, rosemary and garlic in food processor and finely mince. In skillet over medium heat, saute minced combination in olive oil until lightly browned. Add cabbage and cook, stirring until cabbage is tender, about 5 minutes. Puree tomatoes through food mill into skillet and cook until barely thickened. Add skillet mixture to soup pot and bring to boil. Cook 10 to 15 minutes.

In large casserole, place loose layer of bread slices. Dust with grated cheese. Pour 1 to 2 ladles soup over, spooning deep in soup pot to pull up beans and cabbage. Repeat until all bread is used, ending with remainder of cheese. Let stand 10 minutes, allowing bread to absorb soup and then top off.

Bake at 350 degrees until heated through. Before serving, top off with more soup, covering bread completely. Makes 8 servings.

Each serving contains about:

369 calories; 712 mg sodium; 19 mg cholesterol; 16 grams fat; 42 grams carbohydrates; 17 grams protein; 2.99 grams fiber.