Caldo Verde - Portuguese Kale Soup

Chop your onions, slice your carrots and smash your garlic.

Set aside.

Peel and chop the potatoes.

Set aside in a bowl of cold water.

Remove the casing from your chorizo.

This is an important step.

Chorizo casing is tough and unforgiving and will make the sausage link curl during the cooking process.

Just remove it and don't worry about appearance.

Cut the links length-wise then chop into half-moons.

Sautee in a separate pan until the are nice and browned.

Don't put into the pot until the last minute, otherwise the color of the chorizo will leach into the soup turning it a weird red color.

Now it's time to prepare the kale.

With each individual leaf, cut out the stem.

You can do this several ways.

Cut a triangle out of the leaf, or fold over the leaf and cut out the stem that way.

Or rip off the halves of the leaves off the stem.

I like a little bit of stem to give some crunch and texture.

Tightly roll the leaf into a bundle.

Run your knife over it to julienne the leaf into thin strips.

Don't worry if it's not perfect.

Set aside the kale.

In a big pot, sautee your onions, carrots and garlic in a bit of olive oil.

Once the vegetables start to soften, add the potatoes and some crushed red pepper flakes.

Stir the pot and cook the potatoes until the outer edges start turning clear.

Then add the 6 cups of water and 2 bouillion packets (or 4 cups of broth and 2 cups of water) to the pot.

Bring to a boil then let simmer until the potatoes are cooked.

With a wooden spoon, mash the potatoes against the side of the pot.

Do this until almost all the chunks of potatoes are mashed.

Leave some chunks behind.

This will give your soup a wonderful hearty texture.

Now it's time to add the Kale.

It looks like a lot and will fill up your whole pot but not to worry because it wilts down pretty quickly.

Cook for 5 minutes at a simmer then stir in chorizo sausage.

Serve hot or at room temperature (the latter is my favorite).

Eat with a nice crusty loaf of Portuguese bread.

Enjoy!