Portuguese & Brazilian "Green Soup": "Caldo Verde"

 

Edited for clarification purposes 11-21-21

"Caldo Verde" is a traditional soup from Portugal, also made in Portugal's former colony of Brazil. It is typically made with a type of cabbage grown in Portugal and the neighboring Spanish province of Galicia, but this cabbage is very tough to find outside of the above mentioned area; however, there is a suitable substitute, kale. Further, the Portuguese and Brazilians use their own "chouriço," or "linguiça," both types of sausages which are, again, not always easily found elsewhere in the world, but Spanish "chorizo" is much more readily available, and is "similar." (Note: This is the dry cured Spanish chorizo, not Mexican chorizo.) These Portuguese and Spanish pork sausages are flavored with paprika, with the Spanish version tending to have more paprika. In Portugal, this soup is traditionally served with Portuguese Cornbread ("Broa de Milho"), a crusty topped cornbread, somewhat different from American cornbread, due to its crusty top and dense interior, and it is made using yeast. While this is my own version, the basic recipe and information was from "Culinaria, European Specialties, Volume 2," chief editors: André Dominé and Michael Ditter; Christine Westphal, editor, Könemann Publishing,  Cologne, 1995

Ingredients:

1 lb. kale, with large stems removed, then chopped or torn into smaller pieces
1 medium onion, chopped
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 cloves of garlic, sliced
3 medium potatoes, peeled and sliced
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
10 to 12 oz. chorizo, sliced into bite-sized pieces
2 cups water
6 cups chicken broth
1 tablespoon pepper (white or black, but white is more common in Portugal, from my understanding)
drizzle olive oil on each serving

Simmer the sliced chorizo in the water for a couple of minutes, remove the chorizo, but keep the now flavored cooking water. In a large pot, heat the olive oil on medium heat, add the onion, salt, garlic and potatoes, stir well. Cook, stirring occasionally, for about 3 or 4 minutes. Add the chicken broth and 1 cup of the reserved chorizo-flavored water, stir well. Adjust heat to simmer the soup for about until the potatoes are softened, but still firm and not mushy. Remove the pan from the heat and let it sit for a couple of minutes, then, using a stick blender, puree (also spelled, 'purée') the soup until smooth. Return the soup to the heat (medium heat, and if you want to thin the soup more, add the remaining chorizo-flavored water). Add the kale and pepper, stir well. Simmer to just soften the kale some ("about" 3 minutes; it should keep a nice green color this way). In each serving bowl, add 3 to 5 pieces of chorizo, then add the hot soup over it. Drizzle a little extra virgin olive oil onto each serving.

 
WORD HISTORY:
Cauldron-This word for "kettle" goes back to Indo European "kelhe," which had the notion "warm, hot." This gave its Latin offspring "calidus," with the same meaning, and this produced "calidarium," meaning "warm or hot bath." This then gave Latin "caldaria," meaning "cooking pot, basin," which gave Old French, a Latin-based language, "chaudron," meaning "kettle," and this was rendered as, "caudron/cauderon," in the northern dialects of Old French, and it was borrowed as "caudron" into English circa 1300, with the spelling "cauldron" coming a little later by influence of the Latin form.