This basic assumes you know how to make stocks and adjust seasonings. He is also supposed to know how to deal with dried beans. If you want to try a soup recipe but don’t know how to proceed, do a search; you can find many wonderful recipes on the Internet.
White bean soup is one of my favorites since childhood. Sure there are many ways to prepare it but I would like to tell you how my mother did it. Although I rarely make it myself (I prefer to use navy beans in minestrone), I hold a fondness in my heart for warm, satisfying soup that eats hungry on cold winter days.
Navy beans are tough and require more time to soak and boil than other beans (I guess that’s where they got their name, they held up well in the ship’s hold). They are rich in flavor, less ‘beany’ than other types, and have a smooth texture when fully cooked. Their skins are also thin, leaving far fewer shells than other fully cooked beans.
My mother’s recipe was simple. It was basically a chicken soup packed with white beans. It was rich and fortifying. Along with the chicken and its broth, the soup was a homemade classic containing potatoes, carrots, celery, and onion. I don’t know where my mother found time, but she always cut all the vegetables into very fine cubes and added them at the end of cooking. And the chicken pieces were always cut into small cubes and never shredded so they would maintain their integrity. My mom was annoying that way.
I would have topped my soup with an ounce of dry sherry or Madeira, though I doubt my mother would have. For some reason, she always served the soup with whole grain rye bread, while I prefer regular crackers. That’s closer to the tough tack you would have had aboard a sailboat.