Leek, Italian Sausage, Potato and Kale = Souperbowl Soup (photos)

It is a dreary day here, so we decided to have soup for our Superbowl game meal. As the guy in charge of making soup tonight, here is what I did.

Leek, Italian Sausage, Potato and Kale Soup.


The broth base for this soup is heavy cream and chicken broth.

You'll need:

1 pound Italian Sausage
2 Leeks - about 2 cups (sliced)
2 small onions - medium dice
4 cloves garlic, minced
4 cups small Irish Potato, 1/8 inch slice
6 ounces of Kale (Baby Kale used here)
1 Tablespoon Olive oil
4 1/2 pints (homemade) chicken broth
1/2 pint heavy cream
2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar
1/8 teaspoon black pepper

IMO You always need some butter toasted crusty bread for dipping when you make a soup of this type.



Cleaning Leeks is very important because they are always dirty. To do that, cut off the top close to where green turns to white and discard the tough green tops.



Slit the bottoms lengthwise and rinse them thoroughly because they will also have mud and sand imbedded in the layers



then slice them into 1/8 inch pieces. The dark green tops are tough and no amount of cooking will make them acceptable, so throw them away.



Peel and chop the onions and garlic (not shown)

Remove the casings from the Italian sausage and brown them in a little olive oil. Cook them in the pan/pot you will use to make the soup, so you keep all of the flavor from the sausage in the soup.



When the sausage has rendered liquid and is almost done, remove it, add the leeks, onion and garlic to the pan and begin sautéing them.



Then cut the sausage into suitable pieces and return it the pot with the leeks and onions.



At this point, I covered the pot to sweat the vegetables until they were tender.



At that point I added a tablespoon of AP flour to help thicken the soup and allowed it to cook for three or four minutes to set the flour.



I need to back things up a little. I had (earlier) pre-prepped my potatoes, scrubbing them and trimming away the ugly places and eyes, then slicing them into 1/8 inch slices on the mandolin





Then I set them aside until needed.



Eventually I decided these slices were too big for the spoon and cut them in quarters and pieces, just before adding them to the soup.

Back to making the soup - We have several containers of chicken broth in the freezer for use in soups and casseroles.



I added three of them to tonight's soup for a total of about 4 1/2 cups of homemade chicken broth.



Did you know you can buy a hen at the grocer and boil it with a carrot, onion, celery, salt and pepper and make enough chicken broth that will be ten times better than canned broth and equal in value to the cost of the hen, which is still good for use in casseroles, chicken salad or whatever?

To add a little sweetness to the soup and because I like the taste it gives, I added two teaspoons of Balsamic Vinegar.



Then the potatoes



and kale. As you can see, I added the chicken broth as I went along and not all at the same time, since I added it from frozen.



Here is my soup after twenty minutes cooking. The Kale looks tender.



So it's time to add the cup of heavy cream.



and call it Souperbowl Soup



Here is the money shot, complete with butter toasted crusty bread ready for dipping.



This soup has a nice meaty Potato and Leek taste. These are two very nice rainy might soup ingredients and the results were nice.

For what it is worth, this a do again soup.

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