Real African Dishes: [MC-AllEthnic-Recipes] Spanish Galician Potato Soup with Greens and Chorizo - Caldo Galego

* Exported from MasterCook *

Spanish Galician Potato Soup with Greens and Chorizo - Caldo Galego

Recipe By :
Serving Size : 7 Preparation Time :0:00
Categories : LowerCarbs Meat

Amount Measure Ingredient -- Preparation Method
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1 pound large chorizo -- or linguiça sausages, about 3 or 4
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion -- diced
3 large garlic clove -- minced
2 teaspoons paprika
8 cups water -- or stock
2 pounds Yukon Gold potatoes -- about 5 large, unpeeled, cut in 1/2-inch dice
3 cups chopped broccoli rabe -- (discard the toughest stems but most are quite edible), kale, or spinach, tightly packed
1 bay leaf
2 teaspoons salt -- decrease if using salty stock
freshly ground black pepper -- to taste

Prepare the sausages - grill or pan-render: To grill the sausages whole, cook them for about 10 minutes, turning once. When cooked through, cut them lengthwise, slice crosswise, and add to the soup at the end.
For even richer flavor: halve and slice the sausages and then render in the soup pot over medium heat. Then use the rendered fat to saute the onion and garlic in Step 2. Set the cooked sausages aside.

If using rendered fat, decrease the oil by 1 tablespoon and heat the oil/fat in a heavy 6-quart saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion and saute until it begins to brown. Add the garlic and paprika and cook briefly, just until the garlic begins to brown.

Add the water or stock, potatoes, broccoli rabe, and the bay leaf, and simmer, partly covered, for about 30 minutes, or until potatoes and greens are soft. If you're using spinach, add it later in the simmer - wait until the potatoes are almost soft.

Remove the bay leaf, add salt and pepper, taste and adjust the seasonings as needed. Cool and run through the food processor or use an immersion blender right in the pot, before adding the sausage.

Add sausage and serve with fresh flatbreads. Traditional Galician breads often have lots of caraway and rye in them - think northern Europe, not the Spanish Mediterranean.

Serves 6 to 8

AuthorNote: "Years ago I studied for a while in the north of Spain, close to the region of Galicia. You can still hear the Galician language (which more closely resembles Portuguese than Spanish), and a distinctive regional cuisine flourishes. There's deep pride for the local culture - one of my classmates was Galician and only answered to 'Gallo' (kind of like a Texan wanting to be called 'Tex" - he was a bit of a character). I like to think that Gallo and his family would sit down during winter break and eat hearty soups like this one. If you can't get Spanish-style chorizo, the Mexican variety works nicely, or the Portuguese-style linguica sausage (or any sausage you like). If you puree the soup before adding the sausage, the result will be a little closer to a French-style 'potage', but the original is the more rustic creation." - Jeff

This recipe works well with many kinds of green vegetables. The closest you can come to traditional 'caldo galego' is to use broccoli rabe stems and greens, now widely available in the United States. It's a close cousin to a local Galician green called 'grelo', and it imparts a nice astringency to the soup. But you can experiment with anything you like as the green part of the dish, including ordinary broccoli.

Cuisine:
"Spanish/Iberian"
Source:
"Artisan Pizza and Flatbread in Five Minutes a Day by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois, 2011"
S(Formatted by Chupa Babi):
"Dec 2011"
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Per Serving (excluding unknown items): 477 Calories; 31g Fat (58.6% calories from fat); 20g Protein; 29g Carbohydrate; 3g Dietary Fiber; 57mg Cholesterol; 1439mg Sodium. Exchanges: 0 Grain(Starch); 2 Lean Meat; 1 Vegetable; 5 Fat.

Nutr. Assoc. : 2691 0 0 0 0 0 0 773 0 0 0