Every culture in the world has a dish that involves throwing a whole bunch of veggies into a pot, adding a little bit of meat, and cooking the whole shebang until soft, hot, comforting, and delicious. Sometimes it’s a stew, sometimes a soup, and sometimes pot pie, but it’s a universal dish.
I had a few turnips sitting in the fridge from my CSA that needed to be used, and browsing my fave food blog, I came across this recipe. It’s a soup from northwestern Spain, and it might be the best fall and winter clean-out-the-fridge recipe I’ve come across. The original calls for potato and turnip, but you can use any root vegetable or winter squash: sweet potato, rutabaga, butternut, pumpkin: whatever you want.
The key is the little bit of bacon—which turns plain water into a rich, smoky, porky broth—and the sausage pieces (the original calls for Spanish chorizo; I used locally made Monroe hot smoked sausage)—which make a bowl of vegetable soup feel like a filling meal. The recipe turns half a pound of meat into at least six sizable bowlfuls of soup. I’ve been eating leftovers for lunch all week.
The greens in the recipe are easily variable, too. The original has turnip or other leafy greens—I used a bag of CSA salad mix, and it worked wonderfully too.
I’m normally a proponent of using chicken stock in place of water in soups, but here it seems like it would be gilding the lily. All the ingredients make the broth flavorful enough without the extra body of a stock.
Caldo Gallego
Adapted from Serious Eats
4 oz. bacon, diced small
1 medium onion, chopped
1 1/2 lb. assorted root vegetables and/or winter squash, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1 (14-oz.) can white beans, drained and rinsed
6 to 8 oz. greens, stemmed and roughly chopped
4 oz. link sausage, sliced into 1/4-inch rounds
Cook bacon in a large pot over medium-low heat until fat is rendered and bacon is crisp, about 10 minutes. Add onion and root veggies or squash, saute briefly, and add water to cover. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer 20 minutes or until vegetables are tender. Add beans, greens, and sausage and cook until greens are wilted and sausage is cooked through, 3 to 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper and serve with crusty bread.