Thursday, February 27, 2014

Zuppa Tosc-Awesome

This soup is loosely based on a loose adaptation of the Olive Garden dish, Zuppa Toscana. I originally ordered this soup for the same reason as everyone else--you're getting the soup, salad, and breadsticks lunch and discover the soups all sound like tosh...except...oh, what's this...there's sausage in this one. I fiddled with it a bit and so now it isn't quite Toscana...it's Tosc-Awesome.

Note: I omitted the cream usually called for in Zuppa Toscana so I could pretend I was being a bit healthy--if you don't like brothy soups, you'll probably want to add some cream to this. Do so after the boiling is done--you just want to warm it through. Maybe a pint or so for this amount?

Zuppa Tosc-Awesome -- Yields about 1.5-2 gallons
2 32oz cartons of chicken broth (which you will then fill again with water)
2 lbs ground sausage, such as Bob Evans Savory Sage
5 medium-largish potatoes, cubed (skins on is nice)
3 medium-largish potatoes, sliced and diced finely
2 pinches red pepper flake
2 bay leaves
Granulated garlic
Granulated onion
1 small bunch kale, ribbed and chopped thinly
1 bag frozen peas
1 onion, sliced
5-6 cloves of garlic, minced
1 carrot, diced

1. Prepare the onion and garlic. If no one has ever shown you the proper way to do this, there's lot of mucking about. Here's what I like to do: cut the root and stem ends off first. Next, make a shallow slice down the side so you can peel off the paper and funky outer layer. Cut the onion in half from root to stem end. Now the exciting part: turn the half flat side down, and start slicing down the onion so that the little half-rings fall apart on their own. Isn't that great? Anyway, do that. Cut the ends off the garlic, squash it with the flat of your knife, and de-paper it. Mince finely.

2. Cut up the potatoes. Most of them should be in nice chunks--but since we're not adding cream as in the original version of this soup, you should (basically) mince some of the potatoes so they fall apart completely in the soup to add body.

3. Brown the sausage in a large pot with a bit of water to keep it from burning. I wouldn't add more fat to it at this point...the sausage can be pretty greasy already. After it's started browning, toss in the onion and garlic and stir.

4. Pour in the chicken broth and water. Add the bay leaves and red pepper flake; stir in granulated garlic, onion, salt, and pepper to taste. Side note: Be cautious with the red pepper--honestly, 2 pinches is more than enough to give a nice heat to several gallons of soup. Yes. Several Gallons. If you don't like spicy put in one or two PIECES instead of pinches.

5. After the broth is boiling, toss in the potatoes and carrots. Boil until your root veggies are cooked through. This can be as quick or long as you like--the longer you simmer, the better the flavor.

6. Add the peas at some point--you don't want to boil them too long, or they'll get mushy.

7. Cook the kale. You should de-rib each leaf and cut it into strips. Don't get terribly lazy, or you'll have huge leaves of kale in your soup...wet, messy, and hard to eat! By the way, if you're not sure whether you like kale or not...steam it in a separate pot. That way if you don't like it, you can...I don't know, freeze it or something and make it into artichoke-spinach dip...sans spinach.

8. After the broth tastes good to you--dish it out and top with a bit of kale. Enjoy!

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