Serves: 8
Total Calories: 74

3 pounds beef shank
1 pound Italian dry beans or red kidney beans
1/4 pound salt pork (Buy in Italian store)
2 cups chopped celery
1 medium yellow onion, diced
1 cup chopped carrot
2 cups sliced zucchini
2 (10-ounce) packages frozen italian green beans
6 cloves minced garlic
1 pound Napa cabbage, chopped
Basilico or basil leaves if you have them
hot sauce
grating Parmesan cheese for serving

Soak Italian dry beans or red kidney beans, then cook and put thru blender. (I have substituted with a can of red kidney beans put thru blender.) Boil shanks with celery, carrots, onion, salt and pepper. Then while cooking...Take salt pork (about the size of a half cube of butter, more if cooking a big pot) and chop real fine and fry with a lot of garlic in a little olive oil. Then add hot sauce and fry slowly for another fifteen minutes or more, then add to soup and vegetables. A half hour before serving add Italian green beans, Napa cabbage, and zucchini.

IMPORTANT: Salt pork is to be chopped very fine and browned. Add pureed beans last as they burn. Add these after vegetables, (approx. 1/2 hr. before cooking is done.) Grate Parmesan or Romano cheese onto each bowl before serving.

AUTHORS NOTE: Since this recipe is made with a fairly tough cut of meat, I simmer the beef shanks or boneless short ribs cut in 2-inch chunks for at least couple of hours to make the meat a little less chewy. I add the remaining vegetables and the pureed beans thirty minutes before serving along with 2-3 finely minced basil leaves. In camp I've had good luck using canned kidney beans mashed well with a fork and thinned with a little water.

Nutritional Facts:

Serves: 8
Total Calories: 74
Calories from Fat: 2

More Recipes from the Cee Dub's Ethnic & Regional Dutch Oven Cookin' Cookbook:
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Beet Soup
Bina's Minestrone Soup
Cabbage And Potato Soup
Cathy's Black Bean Soup
Classic Green Chili Stew
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French Onion Soup
Jane's Taco Soup
Peanut Soup
Pozolé
Russian Fish Soup
Sauerkraut Soup
Southern Beef Stew
Traditional Irish Stew
Tri-Cities Rod & Gun Club Fish Chowder
Vegetarian Stew
Willie's Green Chili