Pan lavato (washed bread) soup that enhances the new olive oil.

Washed bread, slices, cabbage with slices, different names for the simplest bread soup in Tuscany, the one that best enhances the EVO oil just made. Pan lavato

 

By Donatella Cinelli Colombini

The name of this dish changes from village to village but the recipe changes very  little. It is a delicious traditional bread soup with cabbage from southern Tuscany, typical of the winter time . In Montalcino we call it washed bread, in Trequanda, where the Fattoria del Colle is located, they call it slices or cabbage with slices.
More than with any other dish you can appreciate the freshly pressed extra virgin oil , especially what is made from olives with a full taste and fragrant scent.
Consequently like all very simple recipes the quality of the result depends on the ingredients that must be extraordinary, the cabbage obviously but mostly the  EVO oil, the vinegar and especially the bread, rigorously without salt and handmade with sourdough.
The most suitable wine to accompany this soup is a Chianti Superiore or a Doc Orcia that come from the  same territory as the oil that, in our case, is from Trequanda where the Fattoria del Colle is located.

INGREDIENTS FOR 4 PEOPLE

1,5KG of cauliflower, 4 ounces of Tuscan homemade bread, garlic, extra virgin olive oil, wine vinegar, salt and pepper

PREPARATION OF PAN LAVATO

First of all wash the cabbage, chop it coarsely and boil it with its leaves in salted water. Toast the sliced bread. When the fork easily penetrates the cabbage extract it from the water. Stir the bread and dip it in the cooking water of the cabbage for a few seconds and then spread it on a tray with raised edges. Place the cabbage on top before it gets cold, season with oil, vinegar and salt, then grind the black pepper on top. Finally serve still steaming or heated in the oven.