I had a recipe request for this soup, thought you all might like to try it. If you haven’t had the Portuguese sausage called linguica, you’re missing out. You can make your own (I haven’t tried this yet, but when we butchered our last hog I saved some meat to try it, you could also use chicken…) using this recipe: http://www.recipezaar.com/Linguica-Portuguese-Sausage-193061 or you can purchase it from this company: http://local.yahoo.com/info-10272761-michael-s-provision-company-fall-river . Michael’s also sells a chicken version.

It’s VERY easy to make this soup. You’ll need:

3 quarts Bone broth
2 lbs portuguese sausage – linguica and/or chouric
4 potatoes – peeled and chopped into 1 inch cubes
1/2 lb carrots – cut into nice sized chunks
2 cups kidney beans – pre-cooked or canned
1 large onion – chopped
1 large bunch kale (see below) or 3 cups frozen
1/4 cup whey
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Amounts will vary depending on how much meat you use. I’m being obtuse
because I usually fill a 20 quart stock pot, and I eyeball it… You can’t do this ‘wrong’ – it’s whatever you like in your soup. The only thing you want to keep an eye on is not adding too much broth – err on the side of caution and add more broth when it’s cooked if you need to.

Chop your onion and your sausage and put into a stock pot. Add a bit of broth, just enough to keep the pan from browning on the bottom, and cook your sausage and onions until the onion is translucent. Easiest way to do this is get it nice and hot, cover it, lower your heat to med-low and let it go. Stir it every once in a while to make sure the meat isn’t sticking.

When the onion is translucent, add enough broth to cover the meat, plus one quart of water. I prefer a mixture of beef/chicken broth. You don’t want a real flavorful broth to start with – the meat creates a great smoked paprika flavored broth.

Add your beans, I prefer canned (my own or organic) and add the bean juice from the can into the soup, carrots, potatoes and one cup of kale.

Bring just to a boil and then drop the temp to let it simmer very gently until all the veggies are cooked.

Note about kale: If you can buy fresh/organic kale, it has the best flavor. Some recipes have you de-vein it and throw away the stalk (gasp). Personally, I use the whole thing. The stalk has a great chew/texture, just make sure you add the chopped stalk to the simmering soup. If you have your own kale, I like to freeze it and then crumble it in the bag – makes for great bite-sized chunks.

This soup actually tastes better when it has sat overnight in the fridge. Even 24 – 48 hours is better… (If you can wait that long…)

About ten minutes before you are going to serve the soup, add remaining kale and the whey. You don’t want that kale cooked, just gently warmed.

There are a million versions of this soup out there – my mom never added carrots, I really like the color/flavor addition. Experiment!