Overload of cabbage for Marta - a soup to steer away the excesses of December


I gave you cabbages last post, but it was only half a cabbage. Because I buy them whole, we were left with the unused half, and it needed to be cooked soon enough, before it began to spoil. Truth is, whenever I cook this dish, I always use the rest of the savoy for a soup. And if there's one thing I really like is having a hearty, warming soup for the week that stands between Christmas and New Year. During Christmas Eve and day, I tend to eat stuff I hardly ever do during the rest of the year, so I always get to boxing day feeling a bit worse for wear - added to the stress that usually comes with this time of the year. I feel like I need a few days quiet and a bowl of pipping hot soup to help me through. So I always have soup that I know will fill me up but not too much. Ramens get cooked a lot around here during the 26th of December to the 30th. All other kinds of soups, too.


Because I really wanted in with at least two dishes for Marta's Ingredient of the Month this December, when I cooked my sausages and savoy cabbage, I also made some soup. Another childhood stale, this one, as my parents would use only the outer leaves for wrapping the sausages and cut up the rest of the cabbage for a soup. I love cabbage soup, it's heartwarming and reeks of cold Winter days. For some stupid reason, cabbage soup makes me thing of Dickens' time, of Jane Austen as well. It seems to catapult me right into Yorkshire for walks in the moors, with the Brontës. It pushes me into Trollope's worlds of church hierarchy and political intrigue. It makes me dream of joining Holmes and Watson - I'll take either Jeremy Brett or Benedict Cumberbatch if you please, I'm not picky like that - in their adventures. It drives me into Poirot's neat dinning room, to sit down with him as he forces my little grey cells to work while we dine over an exposed mystery or two. It's quintessencially British in my imagination, I dunno why.


So a savoy cabbage soup it is, and here's the how to on it:
  • half a savoy cabbage, roughly chopped
  • five medium potatoes
  • one leek, sliced
  • one turnip, diced
  • one courgette, sliced
  • half a litre of good, homemade stock + water to top it off
  • salt for seasoning, if needed
Peel and chop your vegetables. Cut the cabbage into pieces and reserve. On a large pan, pour the vegetables, minus the cabbage, the stock and the water and bring to a boil. Lower the temperature and let it cook away. Once the veggies are cooked, take the pan out of the heat and with a handblender, blitz away until you have a purée. Bring the pan back to the heat, cover with a lid and let it come to a boil once again. Check the seasoning and adjust, and once it's boiling, add the cabbage, lower the heat again and allow the cabbage to cook thouroughly. Once the cabbage is tender, turn off the heat and let the soup rest for a few minutes before serving. It stands out nicely as a whole meal in those days between Christmas and New Year, trust me!



Comments

  1. Olá!
    A couve-lombarda é sem dúvida a que eu mais gosto, no reino das couves. Adoro o seu sabor!
    E como te compreendo, uma malguinha de sopa de lombarda bem quentinha, e eu sou uma mulher mais que feliz!
    Obrigado minha doce por teres trazida ainda mais esta receita! :)
    Espero sinceramente que o Novo Ano seja muito generoso contigo, e que sejas muito feliz, e que continues com esse teu humor peculiar e delicioso! Adoro tu!
    Beijocas enormesssssssss
    Marta

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    1. Também quero que o novo ano te traga muitas boas oportunidades e muita felicidade, e acima de tudo muito orgulho em seres a pessoa que és!!! Beijos grandes <3

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