Caldo Verde or Green Soup in Portuguese style is one of my favorite soups! By itself its already a full meal, it usually comes with Chouriço. It’s so creamy and flavorful and the perfect soup for a cold winter! I add a little Nepalese twist of course, enjoy!
Cooking time 35 minutes
Servers for 6
Ingredients
400 grams Potatoes
200 grams Collard Greens (Couve Galega)
1/2 or 1/ Cup Onion
4 Cloves Garlic
4 tbsp Olive Oil
1 ½ tsp Salt or to your taste
1 Chouriço around 250 grams
2 small green Chilies optional
2 or 3 tbsp of Fresh Coriander stems
2 liters water
How to make
Prepare all the ingredients above:
Wash and cut the Couve Galega/Collard Greens in the fine strips or very fine Julian after blenching it 6 minutes in 2 liters of boiling water. Keep the Couve in ice water to not cook more and reserve the broth to cook the potatoes.
Slice the Potatoes and reserve it in cold water and chop Garlic, Onion, Coriander stems and chilies randomly.
Heat a pot on medium heat, drop in 4 tbsp of Olive Oil or less if you like, chopped garlic, onion, coriander stems and chilies. Stir them very well and let them soften slowly around 6 minutes stir them often to soften evenly.
After 6 minutes, mix well again. Drain the water from the Potatoes and add in, salt around 1 tsp, stir it very well to combine. Remembered we already used salt while we boiled the couve so make sure you use less now, at the end, when you taste and add in if necessary. Let it cook around 2 minutes.
After 2 minutes, add in all the stock/broth that we reserved from the couve. Combine it very well. Turn the heat up to high to boil it faster.
After boiling, lid on, do not cover all, turn the heat down to medium and let it boil for around 10 minutes.
After 10 minutes take the lid off, by this time Potatoes should cook but if your potatoes are bigger in size then you might need a bit more time to cook.
Blend it with a hand blender very well until it’s creamy if you don’t have a hand blender you can use potato masher and mash it very well. Add in all reserved couve, mix it well and let it boil for 2 minutes.
After 2 minutes if the soup got thick then add in around 250 ml hot water, mix it very well and boil a minute. Taste adjust the flavor and you are done.
For the Chouriço, use 250 grams of good looking Chouriço, cut it into half, one half cut it in diagonal and another half dice in small cubes, fry them in a pan with a few drops of olive oil until it gets crispy and reserved the Chouriço and the delicious fatty oil from it. If you fallow this way it becomes so crispy and delicious and having with the soup it explodes the flavor all over your mouth.
To serve, put the soup on the plate, add a few slices of fried Chouriço in the middle and spreads fried cubes around it, it will look gorgeous and a few drops of oil from the fried Chouriço, enjoy.
