Ingredients
Veal Dumplings:
1 pound ground veal
1 large egg, beaten
1/3 cup Italian breadcrumbs (a couple of handfuls)
1/4 cup grated Parmigiano Reggiano or Romano cheese (a generous handful)
1/4-1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg (eyeball it)
Coarse salt and black pepper
Stoup:
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil (EVOO)
2 carrots, peeled
2 ribs celery and their greens
1 medium yellow onion, peeled and halved
Coarse salt and pepper
1 fresh or dried bay leaf
1/2 cup white wine
1 can white beans or cannellini (14 ounces), drained
1 can diced tomatoes in puree or coarsely ground tomatoes (15 ounces)
3 cups chicken stock
2 cups beef stock, available in 1 cup small boxes on soup aisle
1 cup egg pasta, broken egg fettuccini or medium egg noodles
Gremolata:
2 cloves garlic, cracked away from skins
1 tin flat fillet anchovies (2 ounces), drained
A handful of flat leaf parsley (about 1/4 cup), loosely packed
1 lemon, zested
Crusty bread, to pass at table
Directions
Combine the veal, egg, breadcrumbs, Parmigiano Reggiano, nutmeg and black pepper. Reserve mix, then wash your hands after handling the raw meat.
Heat a medium soup pot over medium to medium-high heat. Begin to chop veggies while pot heats up: dice carrots into 1/4 inch pieces, then chop celery and onion. Add EVOO, about two turns of the pot, to hot pot and carrots. Turn carrots to coat them in EVOO and add celery and onion as you get them chopped up. Work near the stove so than you can chop and then drop veggies right into the pot.
Season the vegetables with salt and pepper and a bay leaf. Stir vegetables and cook five minutes to begin to soften. Do not let vegetables brown; reduce heat if necessary. Add the wine and cook for one minute. Next, add beans and tomatoes and stock to the pot. Put a lid on the pot and raise heat to high. When soup boils, about three minutes, add 1-inch balls of veal dumplings directly to the pot. When you are done adding the veal, stir in the egg noodles. Simmer stoup for six minutes to cook the noodles and meat dumplings. Adjust seasonings and turn the heat off, then let stoup stand a couple of minutes.
To make the gremoata, pile garlic, anchovies, parsley and lemon zest on a cutting board and finely chop the mixture, then transfer to a small dish.
Serve stoup in shallow bowls with a couple of teaspoons of gremolata on top. Stir the gremolata throughout the stoup and pass crusty bread at the table for dipping and mopping.