Potato And Kale Soup

Potato And Kale Soup
soup meat
Not pretty. But pretty delicious.

This also turned out to be a pretty good use for the jar of goose stock that I had left over from last Christmas. Or was it the Christmas before? It seems to keep astonishingly well in the back of the fridge if you thoroughly sterilize the jar and lid by boiling them, then add the hot boiled stock and screw the lid on straight away. This also sucks the vacuum seal in just like factory-filled jars. Maybe it helped having a nice thin layer of fat covering the stock too.

Serves 6

Ingredients
Method
Chop the chorizo into ¼" pieces.
Mince the shallots, quarter the celery sticks lengthwise and mince them.
Peel the garlic cloves. Remove the thick stem ends but leave the cloves whole.
Remove the thick kale stems and finely slice the leaves.
Peel the potatoes and cut into 1" pieces.

Fry the chopped chorizo gently until browned in a little oil if necessary.
Add the minced shallots, celery and garlic cloves. Fry gently until softened.
Most recipes seem to suggest removing the chorizo with a slotted spoon at this stage and adding it back in at the end.
I haven't been able to find out why - perhaps to prevent overcooking or hardening it? Anyway, I'm not yet convinced it makes any difference - I left mine in.
A bit more experience leads me to believe it's because simmering the chorizo slices for too long can leach them of all flavour, particularly if they're thinly cut, leaving them like tasteless leather draught pieces. So if you're going to continue cooking the soup for long, feel free to scoop them out.
Add the potato chunks and cover with the stock. Simmer gently until the potato is soft.
Remove the potato and garlic with a slotted spoon and mash with a fork, then add back to the soup. together with the chorizo if you removed it
Add the kale and simmer for 5 minutes until it's tender.

Season with salt and pepper if it needs it. Mine didn't - the chorizo adds quite enough salt!

A really rich, tasty soup, though not very pretty. Perhaps because my stock was quite dark. It could take a little more mashed potato or small cubes of red potato added at the end, but don't overdo it.
I thought a splash of lemon juice might finish it off well, but it doesn't really work.
You might try adding a little cream.
Nope - cream makes it a bit too rich and sickly. It really needs something a bit more acidic.
A sprinkling of tarragon vinegar is quite nice.
Oooh - or a blob of mayonnaise! Mayonnaise is good. Bad but Good.

I think a nice vegetarian version could use onion seeds as a flavouring.