Greens and Beans Soup with Beef

Bittman's greens and beans, with a pound of lean ground beef browned in a skillet and scraped in. The bean liquid is the stock, so there is nothing else to make.

Ingredients

• 3 cups dried white beans, rinsed and picked over, soaked if you have time
• 3 liters water
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 teaspoons salt, plus more to taste
• 1 teaspoon black pepper, plus more to taste
• 2 tablespoons olive oil, plus more to finish
• 600 g lean ground beef
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 2 bunches kale, leaves roughly chopped, stalks chopped and kept separate
• 2 tablespoons minced garlic
• ¼ teaspoon red chile flakes (optional)
• Lemon or vinegar, to finish

Steps

1. Beans, water, bay leaf, and the 2 teaspoons salt in a stockpot. Bring to a boil, then adjust the heat so it bubbles gently and cover partially. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the beans are tender but still intact — 90 minutes to 2 hours, less if you soaked. Keep it at a bare simmer while you do the skillet.

2. Oil in a large skillet over medium-high. Break the beef in and leave it alone for 3 to 4 minutes to take color, then break it up and cook through, 6 to 8 minutes total. Season it in the pan with ½ teaspoon salt and a good grind of pepper. Don’t run the pan hotter than that — lean beef smokes before it browns.

3. Add the onion and the kale stalks. Cook, stirring, until the onion softens and the stalks lose their squeak, 6 to 8 minutes.

4. Garlic and chile flakes, 60 seconds only, or the garlic burns.

5. Ladle a cup of bean broth into the skillet and scrape everything loose. Tip the whole pan into the pot. That browned layer is the point of the skillet.

6. Simmer 10 minutes so the stalks finish, then mash a cup or two of the beans against the side of the pot.

7. Back up to a boil, stir in the kale leaves, partially cover, and cook until tender but not collapsing, 10 to 20 minutes. Add water if it stops being soupy.

8. Fish out the bay leaf. Taste and salt hard — expect another 1 to 2 teaspoons, added ½ teaspoon at a time. More pepper. Finish each bowl with a squeeze of lemon or a splash of vinegar and a pour of olive oil.

Variations

Without the Beef: This is Bittman’s original, and it’s vegan. Skip the beef and the skillet entirely. Put ¼ cup olive oil in the stockpot over medium-high, add the onion, garlic, kale stalks, and chile flakes, and cook until they begin to soften, 5 to 8 minutes. Then add the beans, water, bay leaf, and salt and carry on from step 1. Go up to 3 bunches of kale — without the beef the greens are the body of the soup. Mash more of the beans, closer to 3 cups, and don’t skip the olive oil in the bowl.

Tips

Brown the beef and cook the vegetables in the same pan, in that order. Lean beef doesn’t leave enough fat behind to cook an onion and a pile of stalks in, so pulling it out just means a dry pan and more oil. It won’t dry out — it’s about to spend half an hour in 3 liters of broth, which is a braise. Get the color on first, though: onions release water, the pan temperature drops, and browning stops.

Chop the kale stalks and give them their own time. Stalks thicker than ¼ inch won’t be tender when the leaves are, so either cut them out or run them through the skillet and the 10-minute simmer, and everything lands together.

Salt the beans from the start, hold the acid until the end. Salting early makes them more tender and better seasoned, not tougher — the old rule is wrong. The acid rule is right, so the lemon goes in the bowl.

Two bunches of kale is about half what Bittman calls for. The beef is carrying the weight he doesn’t have. Thin leftovers with water, not stock — the bean liquid is already the stock.

Source: adapted from How to Cook Everything, Mark Bittman