Friday, October 30, 2009

Caldo Verde (Porteguese Soup)

Last Tuesday I had planned on making this wonderful soup. It was a drizzly, dreary day...perfect for soup. But the fates conspired against me. First, as I reviewed the recipes and began to check my ingredients, I found that I was out of chicken stock. OK, fine, I'll make some and blog how to cut up a chicken and make the stock. I prep the chicken, grab my camera, and...dead battery. At that point I decided to just make the stock Tuesday and the soup on Wednesday and call it good. And that's what I did. And I am just now getting around to posting the recipe. If you don't like it, reduce my pay. But first make the soup.

For this soup, I combined a couple of recipes from the two new soup cookbooks that I recently acquired, and added a few touches of my own. This is a spicy hearty soup that is guaranteed to stick to your ribs. And be sure to have a good crusty bread to soup up the broth with.

Ingredients

1 lb. chorizo
2-3 TBS. oil, butter or mix of the two
1 onion chopped
2 stalks celery chopped
1 large carrot chopped
3-4 cloves garlic minced or grated
6 cups chicken stock
4 medium red potatoes peeled and diced
1 14 1/2 oz. canned diced tomatoes with juice
1 15 oz. can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 TBS. tomato paste
1 tsp. ground sage
1/2 half small head cabbage shredded
salt/pepper to taste
1/4 cup parsley chopped

If you purchase already cooked chorizo, sliced it and brown it. If you have uncooked, cook according to package directions and slice. I found Johnsonville chorizo, and it worked great. Remove from pan and set aside.


In a large pot heat the oil and add the onion. Cook for a few minutes and add the celery, carrots and garlic. Cook on medium low for about 10 minutes. Add the sausage and heat for about 5 minutes. Add the stock and the next 5 ingredients. Heat to boiling, cover, and reduce heat to simmer for 1 hour. Add cabbage and salt and pepper. Simmer another 1/2 hour. Add the parsley just before serving. Yum, yum, and yum. Remember what I said about crusty bread.

Notes: This really is a perfect soup for a cold nasty day. It will certainly warm you up. I know this is a soup I am going to make frequently. I hope you will, too. Enjoy!

3 comments:

Unknown said...

It's good. It's got just enough of a "bite" without being being too spicy (from the chorizo). I guess I inherited Granpa Bell's aversion to really spicy foods....

Phil

KB said...

Super yum.

Frank said...

Looks absolutely fabulous! This is a must try.