Sunday, November 29, 2009

Sunday Supper: Lentil and Sausage Soup

Cayenne & Carob's Sunday Supper: Clean-out-the-fridge Turkey (or Chicken) Soup.

I made this soup back when I "tried" to
roast a chicken (on the list for a redo next year). I think it would be perfect when made with turkey stock. I hope you remembered to save your turkey carcass from Thanksgiving dinner! See Thursday's post to read about preparing homemade stock. Stock keeps forever in the freezer but only a few days in the fridge. Jar it and freeze it. Might as well make extra soup and freeze that too.

Lentil + Sausage Soup
By Cayenne

Hot Italian Sausages, sauteed and broken into smaller pieces
1 onion, chopped
1-2 cloves garlic, minced
8-10 cup of turkey or chicken stock
handful or two of mixed, dried lentils (bulk aisle at whole foods)
1 bunch kale or chard, destemmed (use the stems but add them earlier) and chopped
handful of cubed, cooked potatoes
cayenne pepper
salt + pepper

In a largish soup pot saute the sausage (you want the pot to be big enough for the entire soup). Once the sausage is browned add the onions, cook for 1-2 minutes. If there is a lot (more than 2 cm) of grease in the pan drain some of the grease off. Otherwise go ahead and use it for flavor. Throw in the garlic and cook until fragrant. Add the stock and lentils, bring soup to a boil, turn down heat and simmer for 30-45 minutes or until the lentils are soft.

You can stop at this point and freeze the soup for later when you can add whatever you can find when you defrost it. The rest of the recipes depends on what you are adding to the soup. Always add things that take longer to cook first and the more delicate veggies near the end, e.g. any greens or already cooked squash or potatoes. Carrots, the woody stems of kale and chard, or uncooked potatoes will take a bit to cook so add those early on in the cooking process.

Taste at this point so that you can add cayenne pepper, salt, fresh black pepper to suit your spice preference. I use very little salt in my food because my mom never salted anything and TEB just happens to be really sensitive to salt. For this particular soup I would not add any spices until the very end. The sausage adds a lot of spiciness and salt so I would not be surprised if the soup only needs a touch of pepper.

photo credit: Cayenne 08.09.09, 09.11.09

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Cool! This is exactly what I'm going to do with my turkey carcass.

BTW - I've made your (er Jamie's) pastry crust three different times now (all for apple pie) and it has worked out great. That is a keeper!

Cayenne said...

let me know how the turkey soup turns out.

Jacay pastry crust - I agree that it is a total keeper. I wish that I had written down the savory pie crust recipe from the same book (had to return it to the library).

Have you tried lard for crust yet? I'm afraid of the stuff.

Unknown said...

Made the turkey soup this weekend and it turned out great. I didn't use lentils, but I had Japanese soba noodles in the pantry, so that was added in at the end. It's a very hearty soup.

I won't use lard - I hear it's great, but I just can't bring myself to use it. I do use good quality butter - have used Kerrygold brand from TJs and it always turns out flaky.