Pink Soup
2001-09-19 @ 9:28 p.m.
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I had another wonderful cooking orgy on Sunday. I made cheese bread from a recipe in James Beard's Beard on Bread and chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwiches from a recipe in the Ben and Jerry's ice cream book. As our main course for supper I made a chicken sausage and purple cabbage stew from my own creation.
1 pkg chicken sausage (garlic and herb), cut in chunks (13 oz)
1 onion, chopped
1/2 pkg fresh mushrooms, quartered (or use the whole pkg if you don't have any other plans for it)
1 clove garlic, minced
olive oil
salt and pepper
1/2 head of purple cabbage
1 turnip, diced
1 15 oz can diced tomatoes
1 15 oz can white beans
1 qt carton mushroom broth
1 qt chicken broth
2 tbsp Dijon mustard
1 tsp crushed red peppers
1/2 cup green chilis, chopped
This has a lot of ingredients. You don't really need them all. To make a vegetarian soup you can leave out the chicken, add more white beans, and use all mushroom broth. In fact, in the future, I would probably go with only one or the other (chicken sausage or white beans).
In the bottom of a large soup pot or Dutch oven (I just got a new boulliabase-size Le Creuset pot that I needed to use) brown the chicken and saute the onion, mushrooms and garlic in olive oil. Add a little salt and a few turns of freshly ground pepper.
When the chicken is lightly browned, add the cabbage and the turnip. Stir to coat with the olive oil, adding more oil if you like. Add tomatoes, beans, both broths, mustard, red peppers and chilis. I got the mushroom broth at our local health food store. When I saw it on the shelf, it intrigued me, and I bought it to see what I could use it in. I do that sometimes, buy foods I've never used before just to see what I could do with them. The chicken sausage comes from Publix. They make several flavors. I've made other soups and stews with the ones that looked interesting.
When everything is combined, bring to a boil and then reduce the heat to medium or low (depending on how long you expect it to cook). The turnips and the cabbage will take about 45 minutes on medium to get crisp-tender (I'm not sure where I first saw this description of the mouth feel of vegetables, but I like it. It describes perfectly that point where vegies are tender enough to eat but still a little crisp on the teeth.). Then you can turn it down to simmer and let it sit until you're ready to eat. Sara was a little late getting home from work, so it sat on the stove waiting on us and melding flavors. The cabbage makes everything a little red (or, as Sara called it, "pink soup!"), as if you'd dumped some red wine in it, which probably wouldn't hurt it, come to think of it.
Speaking of wine, we had an Italian Sangiovese with the stew. It was a big, full fruit style with a little acid on the finish. Anything tannic would have clashed with the spices and the mustard. But anything full and fruity would work well, like a Zinfindel or a Gewurtraminer.
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