Recipe no. 15 from Jean-Baptiste Reboul's La Cuisinière provençale (1909), page 16.
Ingredients
- 2 litres of water
- 1/2 kg of green beans
- 3 or 4 potatoes
- 2 tomatoes
- Salt
- 1/2 pound of thick vermicelli
- 2 or 3 cloves of garlic
- 1 sprig of basil
- 3 or 4 tablespoons of oil
- Grated cheese
Preparation
- Cooking the basePut into a stockpot 2 litres of water with half a kilo of well-formed green beans cut into small dice, 3 or 4 sliced potatoes, 2 peeled and chopped tomatoes, season and let cook.
- Adding the vermicelliWhen the cooking is three quarters done, add about half a pound of thick vermicelli and let it finish cooking, but very gently, so that it does not stick to the bottom, for this soup should be fairly thick.
- Preparing the pistouJust before serving, pound 2 or 3 cloves of garlic with a sprig of basil, drizzle with 3 or 4 tablespoons of oil, stirring as if to form a light aioli.
- IncorporatingThin this mixture with 2 ladlefuls of the prepared soup, put it then into the tureen with a handful of grated cheese and pour in the rest of the soup, stirring well with the spoon.
Reboul's text
This soup, of Genoese origin, is hardly found in favour outside Provence, and even there its use is quite limited.
Put into a stockpot 2 litres of water with half a kilo of well-formed green beans cut into small dice, 3 or 4 sliced potatoes, 2 peeled and chopped tomatoes, season and let cook.
When the cooking is three quarters done, add about half a pound of thick vermicelli and let it finish cooking, but very gently, so that it does not stick to the bottom, for this soup should be fairly thick.
Just before serving, pound 2 or 3 cloves of garlic with a sprig of basil, drizzle with 3 or 4 tablespoons of oil, stirring as if to form a light aioli; thin this mixture with 2 ladlefuls of the prepared soup, put it then into the tureen with a handful of grated cheese and pour in the rest of the soup, stirring well with the spoon.
Small Provençal glossary for this recipe
Reboul himself gives certain Provençal names in this recipe: pistou, aïoli (“aioli” in the dictionary). The table below gives the Provençal equivalents of the other words used, in mistralian spelling: each of these forms is attested in our Provençal-English dictionary, and the link opens the entry. Our dictionary does not yet attest the word pistou: we therefore quote it as the author printed it, without adding a form of our own.
| Provençal | English |
|---|---|
| oulo | stockpot |
| faviòu | beans |
| toumàti | tomatoes |
| pela | peel |
| chapla | chop |
| verlichèlli | vermicelli |
| baseli | basil |
| òli | oil |
| froumage | cheese |
| couire | cook |
Source: Jean-Baptiste Reboul, La Cuisinière provençale, Marseille, 1909, recipe no. 15, page 16. Public domain. Transcription, formatting and Provençal glossary by Lingua Nostra.