Arborio Rice and White Bean Soup

The first week of 2019 and I am raw from the New Year's ozoni. The grief that I thought I had processed — the chronic, steady, coat-you-cannot-remove variety — had been hiding a pocket of acute grief that the ozoni opened like a wound. I spent the first three days of the year cooking mechanically, cleaning mechanically, parenting mechanically, doing the thing I know how to do when feeling is too much: functioning. Functioning is not living. Functioning is the skeleton of living. But the skeleton holds you upright, and upright is where I need to be, because Miya needs me upright and the blog needs me upright and the kitchen needs me upright.

I made congee this week — rice porridge, the simplest food, rice cooked in too much water until it breaks down into a thick, smooth, comforting soup. I added ginger and scallions and a soft egg and ate it every morning because congee is the food of recovery, the food of illness, the food that says: your body needs very little right now. Give it rice. Give it warmth. Give it time. The congee was gentle in a way that nothing else in my life is gentle right now, and the gentleness was medicine.

Brian made a New Year's resolution to drink less. He told me on January second, standing in the kitchen, holding a glass of water instead of a beer. I said, "That sounds good." I did not say: you have made this resolution before. I did not say: resolutions last three weeks. I did not say: the drinking is not the problem, the drinking is the symptom, the problem is that you need four beers to be in this apartment with me and the needing is the thing we do not talk about. I said: "That sounds good." The not-saying is its own language. Brian and I are fluent in it.

I wrote a blog post about the new year — about beginning again, about the Japanese practice of starting fresh with clean kitchens and simple food, about the kuromame that represent health and the kazunoko that represent fertility and the mochi that represents longevity. The post was about tradition. It was not about my grief or my marriage or the glass of water in Brian's hand. Some posts are the surface. Some posts are the deep. The surface posts hold the deep posts together. Both are necessary.

The congee I made that week was mine—unwritten, unrepeatable—but this Arborio Rice and White Bean Soup is the recipe I reach for when I want to give someone else the same thing I gave myself: rice cooked until it softens into something gentle, broth that asks nothing of you, warmth that does not require explanation. It is not ozoni. It is not congee, exactly. But it is rice and it is simple and it is the kind of food that says: you do not have to be okay right now. You just have to eat.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 35 minutes | Total Time: 45 minutes | Servings: 4

Ingredients

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 small yellow onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon fresh ginger, grated (or 1 teaspoon ground ginger)
3/4 cup arborio rice
1 can (15 oz) white beans (cannellini or Great Northern), drained and rinsed
6 cups low-sodium vegetable or chicken broth
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more to taste
1/4 teaspoon white pepper
2 scallions, thinly sliced, for serving
1 soft-boiled egg per bowl, halved (optional)
Drizzle of sesame oil or good olive oil, for serving

Instructions

Sauté the aromatics. Heat olive oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened and translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and ginger and cook 1 minute more, until fragrant.
Toast the rice. Add the arborio rice to the pot and stir to coat in the oil. Cook for 1–2 minutes, letting the rice absorb the aromatics.
Add broth and simmer. Pour in the broth and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer uncovered, stirring occasionally, for 20 minutes. The rice will begin to break down and thicken the broth.
Add the beans. Stir in the white beans, salt, and white pepper. Continue to simmer for 10–12 minutes more, until the soup is thick, creamy, and the rice is very tender. Add a splash of additional broth or water if it thickens more than you’d like.
Taste and adjust. Season with additional salt as needed. The soup should taste gentle and round, not sharp.
Serve. Ladle into bowls and top with sliced scallions, a halved soft-boiled egg if using, and a small drizzle of sesame oil or olive oil. Eat while warm.

Nutrition (per serving)

Arborio Rice and White Bean Soup — The Week I Needed the Simplest Thing