sweet potato-greens-sage soup, adapted with love
‘CAN I HAVE YOUR RECIPE?’ friends ask each other, back and forth after delicious meals served with love and hopefully a side order of tasty conversation. But so often it’s not “my” recipe, or “yours” that’s on the table, but one that we have found in a cookbook that became identified with us by those we served it to—friends and family who ask us to make “our” dish again. The actual provenance, though, remains the same: “My” sweet potato-greens soup with sage and garlic is actually Anna Thomas’s Green Soup With Sweet Potatoes and Sage, from her James Beard Award-winning cookbook, “Love Soup.”
You’ll notice that I said sweet potato-greens soup in the headline, though Anna Thomas’s original has it the other way round, with the greens first. I suspect her soup is greener in color than mine comes out, too. That why I say mine is an adaptation (that, and the fact that once I read a recipe and follow it the first time, I rarely look again, and just keep on adapting).
my version of sweet potato-greens soup with sage
Note: This soup freezes very well, but as with all soups, I refrigerate it for a day first to let the flavors meld.
ingredients
- 1¼-2 pounds sweet potatoes (Anna recommends 1¼; I use about 2 to shift the flavor and color balance)
- 1½ tsp. sea salt
- 2 to 3 Tbsp. sage leaves chopped
- 1 bunch kale
- 1 bunch chard
- 8 cloves garlic
- 3 cups vegetable broth
- 3 cups of water
- 2 large yellow onions
- 2 Tbsp. olive oil
- black pepper
- really good olive oil for garnish
steps
Peel and cube the sweets, and put them with the chopped sage and the salt in a big pot, adding 3 cups or so of water over them, and simmering, covered, till soft.
Meantime saute the diced onions till soft and golden brown, in the olive oil.
Chop the washed greens coarsely while all that’s happening.
Add the greens and the whole garlic cloves and the broth to the sweet potato mixture, and let that all soften by simmering awhile longer, covered.
Add the cooked onions. (I deglaze the onion pan with a bit of the broth to get all the good flavor from the oil and onion bits, wasting nothing.)
Let the mixture cool enough to blend thoroughly. Using an immersion blender right in the pot, I puree the soup, and adjust the liquid if needed.
And then, as Anna Thomas says, drizzle with a fruity olive oil before serving. “This last step is essential,” she reminds us. Agreed. Drizzle away, and enjoy.
(I saw a variation Anna Thomas did on the “Eating Well” website, with spinach instead of chard and the choice of Japanese yams or sweet potatoes. You can find that one here if you happen to be long in spinach at the moment.)
more
how to win a copy of ‘love soup’
I’M CRAZY ABOUT BOOKS, and especially cookbooks (and field guides, and novels, and garden books, and … oh dear). Anna Thomas’s “Love Soup” is as good as it gets–about one of my favorite dishes, soup, and vegetarian and good-for-you fresh to boot. The million-selling author of “The Vegetarian Epicure” wrote another winner. Just answer this question in the comments below to enter [note: the giveway is complete, but your comments are always welcome]:
What’s the most popular soup in your house, and where did the original recipe come from?Feeling shy (or no soup in the house)? Just say, “Count me in,” and I will.
Two winners will be were chosen at random after entries close at midnight Sunday, October 21, 2014. Good luck to all.
(Disclaimer: Any small commissions I earn from purchases made from Amazon links in this post go to purchasing the books I buy to give away.)
Favorite soup: Incredible, deeply flavored vegetable soup. It’s got a gazillion veggies in it, from cabbage to tomatoes to onions to green beans to potatoes to…… it is heavenly. It’s my Mom’s recipe … she made it all through my childhood for our family. I think of her when ever I make it and inhale it.
Oddly, I just made Anna Thomas’ “Bowl of Noodles” soup from The New Vegetarian Epicure, and will be having it for supper. It’s been one of my favorites for years! Minestrone and potato-kale also make frequent autumn appearances in my kitchen. Thanks for the giveaway!
Count me in! I make lots of vegetable soups and would love to increase my repertoire.
I often make Tomato Lentil Soup, originally from Rosso & Lukins, The New Basics Cookbook. But I double the lentils, increase the onions and celery, add chopped carrots. I don’t puree this soup, since I serve it as a main dish, and I add a pound of sliced, reduced-fat turkey kielbasa sausage about 30 minutes before serving. If I’m serving vegetarians, I use vegetable broth, separate their servings and add the kielbasa to the non-vegetarians’ pot. The recipe calls for red wine, but my version won a contest for main-dish soups to feed homeless folks through Chicago’s Night Ministry. I had to come up with a non-alcoholic version for them to be able to use it. Luckily, I found a work-around on the internet using a mixture of balsamic vinegar and purple grape juice. Surprisingly, the no-wine version passed a dinner-party taste test!
My favorite soups are the heavy duty fall ones – butternut squash, potato leek. I’m with Margaret, this time of year soup is all I want to eat.
Since the soups I mentioned are my husband’s recipes, I’m not sure where the recipes came from, but I’m guessing the leek and potato soup is from the Swiss chef he worked under in his 20s.
My favorite soup is Curry Tomato soup. I can’t remember exactly where I first saw the recipe but since then this has been my go-to soup especially when I have a load of tomatoes from my CSA veg box :)
For fall & winter, I love a recipe for butternut squash soup that I got from my favorite vendor at the Ann Arbor Farmers Market (Kathy of Recipe Gardens). I like to make it with 2 different kinds of potatoes–1 that will stay a bit chunky & one that will dissolve & thicken the soup. With pepper, cumin, coriander, marjoram, & leeks or onions, it’s fabulous! For summer, it was Fennel, Garlic, & potato soup from Martha Rose Shulman. I just found some in the freezer & I’m so happy!
Summer tomato soup from Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. It has three ingredients excluding salt and pepper, fresh tomatoes, onion, butter.
This summer I have been gorging on Marcella Hazan’s “Simplest Leek and Chickpea Soup” from her book Marcella Cucina. The original recipe calls for beef bouillon but I substitute vegetable stock and it is perfect. It’s kind of like a leek and potato soup but with chickpeas instead and finished with a heap of grated parmesan. Incredibly delicious and easy.
I am a card carrying soup addict and especially love delicate vegetable soups although this cooler weather finds me eager for corn-potato chowder, minestrone, and more. My current favorite is Dan Barber’s Corn Soup from Stone Barns in Pocantico Hills, New York. I live just a mile or two from Stone Barns, the former carriage barn of John D. Rockefeller, and this soup is so ‘fine’, with such amazing corn flavor enhanced by many other subtle notes that I made two mammoth vats of it and froze a total of 27 single portions in early August. If it sounds like too much I have to report I’m already down 11 portions. (hic) I love soup!
The most popular soup I make for my family is definitely my adaptation of Tyler Florence’s corn chowder. I only make it once or twice a year; when I have access to gorgeous fresh corn.
A quick favorite is thai kumera or thai pumpkin soup — I used to make it at a hotel I worked at a few years ago and once got a handwritten thank you note from a guest who ordered it for room service! It’s basically a pumpkin (or kumera instead) soup made with some green curry paste & kaffir lime leaves and then finished off with coconut cream instead of regular cream! I still have that note somewhere…
I should add that I have no idea where the original recipe came from — I learned it from another chef I worked with at the time!
The most welcomed soup around here is super thick seafood chowder. It isn’t really a recipe, just the basic steps of a standard white chowder, using whatever is around. I always use either chopped bacon ends or bacon fat to fry up the onions at the beginning. Love having a pot of soup in the fridge for easy lunches, especially as it gets colder out. Thanks!
Count me in, I made my version of your vegetable soup, delicious. Thanks.
carrot ginger soup from the Silver Palate Good Times cookbook
My family requests it every fall and it is must have over the Thanksgiving holiday.
Oh, this soup sounds so yummy – must try it soon.
My favorite is a riff on a potato leek soup served at the Sir Francis Drake Hotel in San Fanacisco.
Thanks for the chance to be lucky!
I can’t wait to try your soup recipe! It may just displace our current fall favorite: a bean soup made with vegetable stock, a ham bone (optional; just as good without) dried navy beans, onions, garlic, carrots, parsley, a few whole cloves, a few whole peppercorns and sea salt. After cooking all day it is a hearty nourishing soup made even better with dark bread and butter. My mother made it throughout our childhood, based on a recipe from her mother. No one knows where Gram got it – most likely it came from Depression era creativity.
Thank you for the new recipe and a chance at the cookbook!
I make Minestrone Main Dish Soup from a recipe given to me by my pastor’s wife 30 years ago. She used to make it for us when we all showed up to decorate the church with greens before Christmas. Half the time she added road-kill deer meat the state police gave my pastor (he was their chaplain) that had been killed on the Taconic parkway. (I know – yuck – but the soup was always delicious!) I don’t add meat but I cheat and use coleslaw shreds instead of buying a whole head of cabbage.
So many delicious soup ideas here! One of my favorites is cream of tomato with rosemary soup, from a local restaurant, Luisa’s Cafe. Chef Vivian shared her recipe in Lake Magazine a few years ago. I adjust according to what’s in the fridge — maybe milk instead of cream, or a bit of yogurt to tang it up. Rosemary is delicious, but sometimes basil. And so on.
Chicken noodle hands down. It’s a recipe based on my moms, which is based on my grandmas, etc. soooo good!
Right now my favorite soup is a creamy cauliflower soup with cilantro and crushed red pepper. I puree about half of it to make it extra velvety.
Carrot ginger soup. A friend I met at the Master Gardener’s program shared it with me and I haven’t been the same since! : )
The best soup I make is cream of spinach soup, made with carrot and potato to thicken it. The recipe is from one of the Moosewood cookbooks.
chicken posole soup – I don’t have the recipe but a friend made us a huge batch after our first baby was born this summer
I have two favorites. A couple of times a year I roast a chicken on a Sunday, and mid-week I make chicken soup. Sometimes I think about roasting a chicken just so I can make soup. My other favorite is Moosewood’s butternut squash soup. I’ve made many changes to the soup itself, but the mushroom garnish I make exactly as written. It’s so delicious.