Caldo verde

Ingredients

• Potatoes800 g
• Kale — shredded to threads300 g
• Chouriço200 g
• Onions2
• Garlic4 clove
• Olive oil100 ml
• Corn bread — to serve300 g
• Salt and pepperto taste

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1. 1

   Soften the onion and garlic in half the olive oil for eight minutes.

   10 min

2. 2

   Add the diced potato, cover with a litre and a half of water and boil twenty minutes, until completely soft.

   22 min

3. 3

   Blend the soup to a smooth purée and season it.

   5 min

4. 4

   Fry the chouriço slices in a dry pan until they colour and drain them on paper.

   8 min

5. 5

   Roll the kale leaves tightly and cut across them into threads.

   12 min

6. 6

   Bring the purée to the boil, add the kale and cook it exactly three minutes.

   5 min

7. 7

   Ladle it out, add the sausage slices and pour over raw olive oil.

   4 min

About the dish

The kale is cut into threads a millimetre wide. Portugal has a machine for it; by hand the leaves are rolled tight and cut across with the sharpest knife you own.

The greens go into the finished purée and cook three minutes, no more. Longer and they turn grey, and the soup loses the colour that gives it the name "green broth".

The olive oil goes raw into the bowl rather than into the pot. That is not decoration: cold oil on hot soup releases an aroma that boiling drives off.

Worth knowing

• — The sausage is fried separately and never boiled in the soup. Boiled, it gives its fat to the broth and the purée turns cloudy and greasy.
• — The purée should be fairly thin, like pouring cream. A thick soup counts as porridge in Portugal rather than caldo verde.
• — It comes with broa, the corn bread. It is dense and does not go soggy, which is the whole point of the pairing.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories

420 kcal

Protein

12 g

Fat

24 g

Carbs

42 g

More from Portugal

• Bacalhau à brás — Salt cod with matchstick potatoes and egg that binds everything without becoming an omelette.
• Pastel de nata — Flaky pastry cases of custard baked in extreme heat until the surface blisters black.
• Sardinhas assadas — Whole sardines salted coarsely and grilled over coals, served on a slice of bread.