Potato, Turnip, Kale and White Bean Soup

Ingredients

  • 4 slices bacon
  • 1 Tbsp olive oil
  • 1 onion, peeled and diced
  • 6 carrots, peeled and diced
  • 4 stalks celery, diced
  • salt
  • 4 anchovy fillets, packed in oil
  • 4 cloves garlic
  • 3/4 cup white wine or Lillet Blanc
  • 12 Yukon Gold or German butterball potatoes, peeled, halved and sliced
  • 8 white turnips, peeled, halved and sliced
  • 8–10 cups liquid (any combination of chicken stock, vegetable stock or water)
  • parmesan rind
  • 2 cups white beans (navy, cannellini, great northern or butter)
  • 1 head kale (or any hearty green like chard, spinach, bok choy or collards)
  • salt and pepper
  • lemon juice
  • sherry wine vinegar
  • chopped parsley
  • parmesan cheese
  • cooked bacon, shopped or crumbled

Equipment

  • cutting board and knife
  • measuring cup
  • soup pot
  • fry pan for sausage

Prep time:

20

Yields:

50

Recipe attribution:

Phyllis Grant, Dash & Bella

  1. In your soup pot, fry up the bacon until crisp. Remove bacon and place on paper towel. Pour out all but 1 Tbsp of bacon fat.
  2. Add olive oil. Over medium heat, add onions, carrots, and celery. Add big pinch of salt. Cook until tender (about 10 minutes).
  3. While the vegetables are cooking, make a puree out of anchovies and garlic (with mortar and pestle or a chef knife on a cutting board). Add purée to vegetables. Cook over medium heat for 2 minutes, stirring constantly.
  4. Add white wine. Cook down for a minute. Add potatoes and turnips. Add enough stock and/or water so that the vegetables are covered. Throw in a parmesan rind. Bring to the boil. Turn down to a simmer. Cover and cook for 20 minutes.
  5. Add white beans and cook for another 20 minutes with the lid off. You want the potatoes, turnips, and beans to start to fall apart and thicken the soup.
  6. Fry up the sausage in a separate pan until almost cooked through. Slice and add to the soup.
  7. Stack all the kale leaves. Slice into 1"pieces and add to the soup.
  8. Taste. Add salt, pepper, lemon juice, and/or sherry wine vinegar.
  9. Serve topped with chopped parsley, parmesan, bacon, olive oil, and crunchy salt.

This soup is very easy to make. You can soak beans overnight or just use any canned/jarred white beans. Find every vegetable scrap in your fridge from old onion slices to wilted bok choy to rubbery carrots to a stump of brown fennel. All should go in. All will taste good. This is the template.

It's always tastier and thicker the next day. Freezes beautifully.