FACT
– my friend Cooper makes super soups. He and I and another work friend used to do soup exchanges in the winter. Always looked forward to seeing what he would come in with next because they were always D-licious. Then I left for another job and the soup exchange was no more (insert sad face here). So when Cooper approached me about doing a guest post and featuring one of his soup recipes I was totally on board. So now I present for you culinary enjoyment, a super soup.
Cooper’s Super Soup
Sausage and Winter Root Vegetable
1 lb. Italian turkey
sausage (spicy!)
2 tbsp. butter
1/2 medium onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
~ 1 tbsp. fennel seed
~ 1 tbsp. crushed red
pepper
3/4 cup white wine
2 large carrots
2 small-medium turnips
1 large or 2 small
parsnips
1 medium celery root
1 large sweet potato
Salt n pepa (push it to
taste)
4 Roma tomatoes,
1/4" dice
~1 tbsp. dried basil
~2 tsp. dried oregano
8 cups vegetable stock
Wash and peel all root
vegetables. Cut all into 1/4-1/2" cubes. Set aside for later (see note).
In 2 gallon
stockpot/Dutch oven, melt 1 tbsp. butter over medium heat. Remove turkey
sausage from casing and brown. Stir to break up chunks. Once browned, remove to
paper towel-lined plate with slotted spoon to drain.
Add remaining butter to
pot and melt. Add onion and garlic, stirring occasionally until translucent.
Add fennel seed and
crushed red pepper flakes. Stir until strongly aromatic, then deglaze with a
splash of wine.
Add root vegetables,
salt and pepper to taste. Stir until root vegetables until all take up the
reddish tint from the sausage grease, and let cook for 5-10 minutes.
Stir in tomatoes,
remaining wine, basil and oregano. Add sausage and stock, mix and bring to
boil.
Reduce heat and simmer
for 1 hour, or until veggies are tender. Remove lid and simmer for up to an
additional 15 minutes to reduce stock if necessary.
Cooper Notes
As far as stock goes,
this is a free veggie stock soup. All
scraps can be frozen for a future vegetable stock, and the variety of root
veggies should make for a broth no one can quite put their finger on.
From my raw taste test,
the leaves from the celery root are delicious yet potent, but the stems are
very bitter (including the base of the leaf). I think the leaves would make for
a very nice addition to a stock (or a garnish) with discretion as they are
strongly flavored, but the stems are compost.
On the topic of stock, I
used 4 cups of homemade spicy chicken stock (from a white bean chicken chili I had made) and 4 cups boxed veggie stock for my first batch. The homemade
stock definitely added to the soup, but boxed chicken/beef broth (and extra hot
peppers) might achieve the same flavor.
On preparing the root
vegetables – this recipe calls for a lot of washing, peeling, and chopping
tough roots. If you don't have a razor sharp peeler/knife or a good sous chef,
it can take some time. With my limited cooking space and unfamiliarity with
some ingredients, it took me about 40 minutes to prep all the roots.
To keep them from
changing color/oxidizing, I had a large mixing bowl with vinegar-water mixture
on the side for the roots to soak in (~1 tbsp vinegar with water to cover). From
what I've read, any acidic water will do the trick. Just toss in a colander to
strain before adding to stockpot.
K2 Note
Thank you, Cooper! Very much appreciate the share and look forward to more good stuff from your kitchen.
