A few years ago I decided to join a CSA so that I could expand my palate. As it turned out that meant eating a lot of Kale and I didn't know how to cook it. Then I found a basic recipe for Caldo Verde. The recipe was very simple and made the Kale very very tasty. The recipe consisted of chicken broth, potatoes, sausage, kale, and salt. Over time I've added a little of this and a little of that to the recipe. Here is my most recent version of it.
Ingredients:
2 Bunches of Kale
8oz Italian Sausage -cut into bite sized pieces
3 Potatoes -diced
2 Cups White Beans Soaked Overnight
1 Onion -diced
1 Bell Pepper -dice
1 4oz Package Shiitake Mushrooms- sliced
2 T Better than Bouillon Chicken divided
1T Better than Bouillon Garlic
1T Italian Seasoning
1T Red Pepper Flakes optional
The first step is to soak your Beans overnight in water. I usually want about 2 cups of rehydrated beans. For this particular case I didn't measure and ended up with about 4 cups of beans. It was still delicious. I placed the Beans in my slow cooker with enough water to cover them, the Onion, the Bell Pepper, and 1 T Better than Bouillon Chicken. Cook for about 2 hours.
Meanwhile when the Beans are near done saute the Sausage in a large pot. When the Sausage is almost done add the Mushrooms and allow to cook until very done. Then add the Potatoes and saute lightly
Next you want to add your Beans along with the Onion, Bell Pepper, and liquid from cooking them to the pot. Be sure to scrape up all the fond as you add the liquid. Mix in the final 2 T of Better than Bouillon, the Italian seasoning, and Red Pepper Flakes if using. Finally add the Kale. You should have enough liquid to cover the Kale after you push it down a bit, if not add more water. Cover and allow to cook until the Kale and Potatoes are tender. On my new stove that took about 30 minutes, on my old stove it was about 40 minutes.
- The vegetables don't really matter, just take how they cook into account when mixing them in.
- I was being lazy when I made this, if you want you can easily use actual garlic sauteed when you add the potatoes instead of the Better Than Bouillon Garlic.
- You can use any kind of greens you want. In this case I used 1 bunch of curly kale and one of dinosaur kale. I've also used turnip greens, collard greens, mustard greens, kohlrabi tops, and well any dark leafy green that I had access to other than spinach.
- Sausage with cheese in it doesn't work very well for this, but outside of that pretty much every type I've used has worked well. How you cook it also doesn't matter too much. I've used already cooked sausage links that I've cut up, I've used bulk sausage, and in this recipe I've used raw links that I cut up. The texture is different each way, but they've all been good.
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