Caldo Verde
Portuguese Green Soup
Preparation Time:30 minutes
Cooking Time:30 minutes to 1 hour
Level of Difficulty:Easy
Servings:1 large pot!
Ingredients
- 2 nice fat onions, finely chopped
- 4 cloves garlic, crushed
- 60ml /21fl oz olive oil
- 1 chorizo sausage
- 6 large potatoes
- 1.5 litres /2 pints
- 13fl oz good vegetable or chicken stock
- salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- 2 bay leaveslarge bunch of greens or cabbage
- smoked paprika and olive oil, for dressing
Method
- 1. First, drink some port - it helps you get in the mood!
- 2. Sweat the onions and garlic in the olive oil until translucent.
- 3. Chop the sausage into small chunks and add to the onion.
- 4. Sweat the onions and sausage for a few more minutes and then add the diced potatoes. They will absorb all the flavour from the sausage.
- 5. Transfer the mixture to a large pan, add the stock, seasoning and bay leaves, and cook until the potatoes are soft.
- 6. Meanwhile, very finely chop the cabbage (alternatively, buy a cabbage-shredding machine from the market as we did).
- 7. When the potatoes are ready, mash them into the broth to make a thick base. Blanch the greens in boiling water for one minute to take off any bitterness, drain, then add to the simmering broth.
- 8. Add as much cabbage as the broth will support - if you want heavy soup add loads of greens, if lighter, add less.
- 9. Simmer for a few minutes. The soup will go the colour of jade.
- 10. Mix the smoked paprika with some olive oil to make a dressing, and swirl this red magic into the vibrant green soup.
- Serve with some heavy country bread.
