Instructions
On the road out of Siena towards the Tuscan coast you’ll find one of the world’s great restaurants. It’s called Caccio, sharing its name with a famous local cheese. The building was once the Duke of Siena’s summer residence but it is now run as a hotel, replete with its Michelin-starred eatery.
The head chef is a gnarled and ancient cook called Isabella, the fourth generation of her family to work the stoves of the hotel. Her touch with food is light and delicate, using that ineffable Tuscan charm to bring the unique character of her ingredients to life.
During early summer when the leaf vegetables are abundant and not yet wilted under the incandescent sun, she serves a soup that is the essence of Italian cooking: silverbeet and roasted garlic.
And what is the essence of Italian food? Well, it is easiest to understand when juxtaposed to French cuisine. Give a great ingredient to a French chef and he’ll say “Eeeez beautiful, but what can I transform this into?”. Give the same ingredient to an Italian, and they’ll say “Is a-beautiful, let’s just eat it, huh?”. Italian cooking celebrates the character of the food over the skill of the cook.
Silverbeet, like so many green vegetables, is best prepared by the Italian approach. Its hearty and earthy character is easily subsumed by more powerful flavours, and hence chefs must show great restraint when cooking. For contrary to popular opinion silverbeet is not related to spinach, but rather it is the descendant of an estuarine seaweed. It lacks spinach’s characteristic richness, instead having a unique sweet-sourness that marries well with oregano and parsley.
Silverbeet should be cooked soon after purchase is it does not last more than a few days in the fridge, even if it is washed and dried well. Both the green leaves and the stalks are useful, with very different flavours. In Australia many cooks use the leaves only, while in France, only the stalks are commonly used.
Silverbeet and roasted garlic soup