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Baby kale makes this soup dino-mite

Recipe: Young leaves speed up making of Portuguese kale soup

Sacramento Digs Gardening
BY Debbie Arrington PUBLISHED MAR 3, 2019

Baby dino kale and new potatoes speed up this recipe for Portuguese kale soup.
(Photos: Debbie Arrington

Nicknamed Portuguese penicillin, kale soup with sausage is a heart-warming, nose-opening anecdote to winter chills and ills. Made with chicken broth, it gets an extra dose of anti-cold home remedy.

Most recipes call for full-size kale leaves, stripped of their ribs, then chopped. The thick leaves take a lot of cooking to reach total tenderness. (Some Portuguese kale soup recipes recommend simmering for four or five hours.)

Save time and effort; use baby dino kale. With the potatoes and beans, it melts into a rich green broth.

In late winter, baby dino kale is plentiful; it’s ready to pick weeks before a fully mature plant. Baby kale also is more tender and less bitter than older kale. So why wait? Harvest early and enjoy.

Kale leaves in a colander — Dino kale leaves have a distinctive texture.

With its near-black curlicued leaves, dino kale has become a farmers’ market and gardeners’ favorite. More formally called lacinato or Tuscan kale, dino kale got its modern nickname because the strange bubbly leaves appear almost prehistoric. In the garden, it grows on a tall stem with lower leaves harvested first. By late spring, it looks like a little kale palm tree.

New potatoes also are ready now, making them a quick-cooking, easy substitute for full-size counterparts; no peeling necessary.

Linguica, a smoked pork sausage, is a traditional addition to kale soup. For this chicken version, Aidells' Chorizo chicken sausage worked great as a substitute.

Dino-mite Portuguese kale soup
Makes 8 generous servings

Ingredients:

4 cups baby dino kale, washed
3 cups new potatoes, washed and quartered
8 cups (2 quarts) chicken broth
12 ounces Chorizo-style chicken sausage, sliced into coins
2 cups cooked red beans, drained
1 tablespoon sherry vinegar
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

Prepare kale. Wash it well (especially the underside of leaves where dirt clings). Coarsely chop any large pieces.

In a large stockpot, bring 8 cups of chicken broth to a boil. Add kale, potatoes, sausage and beans. Return to boil, then reduce heat. Stir in sherry vinegar, red pepper flakes, salt and pepper.

Over low heat, simmer soup, covered, until potatoes are very tender, about 40 minutes. Adjust seasoning.

Serve hot with crusty bread.

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RECIPE

A recipe for preparing delicious meals from the bounty of the garden.

Keywords:

new potatoes gardening Sacramento vegetables dino kale recipe recipes winter greens soup seasonal cooking lacinato kale Portuguese kale soup kale

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Garden Checklist for week of May 19

Temperatures will be a bit higher than normal in the afternoons this week. Take care of chores early in the day – then enjoy the afternoon. It’s time to smell the roses.

* Plant, plant, plant! It’s prime planting season in the Sacramento area. If you haven’t already, it’s time to set out those tomato transplants along with peppers and eggplants. Pinch off any flowers on new transplants to make them concentrate on establishing roots instead of setting premature fruit.

* Direct-seed melons, cucumbers, summer squash, corn, radishes, pumpkins and annual herbs such as basil.

* Harvest cabbage, lettuce, peas and green onions.

* In the flower garden, direct-seed sunflowers, cosmos, salvia, zinnias, marigolds, celosia and asters.

* Plant dahlia tubers. Other perennials to set out include verbena, coreopsis, coneflower and astilbe.

* Transplant petunias, marigolds and perennial flowers such as astilbe, columbine, coneflowers, coreopsis, dahlias, rudbeckia and verbena.

* Keep an eye out for slugs, snails, earwigs and aphids that want to dine on tender new growth.

* Feed summer bloomers with a balanced fertilizer.

* For continued bloom, cut off spent flowers on roses as well as other flowering plants.

* Don’t forget to water. Seedlings need moisture. Deep watering will help build strong roots and healthy plants.

* Add mulch to the garden to help keep that precious water from evaporating. Mulch also cuts down on weeds. But don’t let it mound around the stems or trunks of trees or shrubs. Leave about a 6-inch to 1-foot circle to avoid crown rot or other problems.

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