Thursday, February 14, 2008

Portuguese Soup

I love soup. I especially love split pea, corn, potato, or seafood chowder, French onion, etc.

Portuguese eat soup every day with lunch and, often, dinner. Stone soup, seafood soup, etc. They'll eat it as the starter to a meal of fish and veggies. One very common soup is just a vegetable soup like the one shown in my pot above.

You can use whatever broth base you want. Here, they commonly use a homemade pork broth. I use chicken or vegetable broth. You can use whatever you want. Canned or homemade.

Here's what they do:

Saute up a diced onion in olive oil in a stock pot.

Stir in a clove of garlic and very ripe tomato, peeled and seeded. Cook until tomato partically dissolves.

Add peeled and diced carrots, sweet potato, white potato, and yellow turnip (however much of each you want). Cover with broth and bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer until veggies are tender.

Puree with a hand blender (Don't bother with a regular blender! Decent hand blenders are under $20) and season with salt, pepper and fresh parsley.

Drizzle with heavy cream, if desired.

This soup is really made many many ways. Many families just make the above soup with whatever veggies they have on hand. I added in noodles. Some add kidney beans. I've made this with pumpkin, potato and cauliflower. Whatever your tastebuds desire. Add greens, like kale. The possibilities are endless! It's a great way to get your child and/or husband to eat more veggies! Especially if you top with Goldfish crackers.

5 comments:

The Dunns said...

Yum! Sounds good. Steve says, "Soup is not a meal," so I don't do dinner soups unless he is away. But the boys will eat soup with me, especially if I make Fishy Soup (soup topped with goldfish). Well, Mikey eats the soup. Daniel just eats the goldfish. :)

I don't have a hand blender but I think I gotta get one. That veggie soup sounds great.

Anonymous said...

Where can I get a hand blender? I've never heard of such a thing...Cool recipie! I will try! And, thanks for the Sling Media advice...I am psyched!!!

Unknown said...

Matt doesn't like soup as a meal either. And, with this soup, he thinks I'm sneaking in peas. Therefore, he won't eat it. Though, he did try it. Maybe as I make different combos, he'll find one he likes. At any rate, with all soup, even the kinds that he likes, I have to make sure sandwiches involved. He views soup as a side dish. And, the Portuguese eat soup as the first course of their meal. Followed by fish, boiled potato, seasonal veggies and then fruit or doce (dessert) and, finally, coffee. They don't drink coffee with their dessert.

Katie said...

That looks REALLY good. I'm intrigued by adding sweet potatoes. I don't think I've ever had them in a soup before!

Anonymous said...

Great recipe! Lee and I love eating soup for dinner, so I'm going to have to make this one. I totally agree with you on the hand blender. A regular blender exploded on me once while making spring pea soup. I bought my hand blender about 2 years ago and it's one of my favorite kitchen tools!

I'll have to let you know how my soup comes out and what I end up putting in it!