Peasant Vegetable Soup

I chose to call this soup "Peasant Soup" because it reminded me of my Mom's stories about her journey from Eastern Europe through Ellis Island in 1929 as a 7 year old girl on a ship with her Mom, brother and sister. Mom told us stories of growing up in Yugoslavia and not having much in the way of possessions. She said that soups were a means for her family and all the families she knew to use any food scraps they had left over, could gather or buy and feed the whole family with a warm and filling meal. Often times root vegetables were what they had to work with because they were inexpensive and somewhat plentiful. While Mom never referred to her Mom or anyone else as peasants that was the vision I conjured up as a kid. The pictures in my head of the peasant women in their simple dresses and heads wrapped in bandanas has stayed with me all these years.

So, when I came across this recipe for Winter Root Soup in Maggie Stuckey's book "Soup Night"  (be sure to check out page 259 if you happen to purchase this book) I immediately thought of my Mom and her family in 1920's Yugoslavia sharing dinner around this soup.

 

Not to minimize my Dad's depression era upbringing which he shared with us as we grew up. They are called "The Greatest Generation" for a reason. But, my Mom and I shared a connection with cooking that will forever bring a smile to my face, just as it is while writing this.

While you may not have used some of these vegetables before they are in just about every grocery store's produce section. This is an easy recipe to prepare, you'll get lots of chopping practice with all the vegetables so be sure you've got your knife good and sharp. A little story about chopping: Berdie gave me a food processor for Christmas that specializes in slicing and chopping vegetables. I have yet to open it because I really prefer to practice my knife skills as much as possible and a machine is not something I see using. I hate to tell her because she gets frustrated with my pickiness about cooking equipment gifts and they often get returned or exchanged. 

On to the recipe... I made only one change to the recipe in the book. I swapped out half of the smoked sausage for chipotle smoked sausage just because the package caught my eye when I was buying the ingredients. I usually go for a spicier approach and the chipotle sausage did it for me. One more tip: the whole allspice needs to be in a cheesecloth bag so you can easily remove it when finished cooking. We did not have any cheesecloth so I was rummaging around for an alternative when Berdie suggested a paper coffee filter which worked perfectly!

Makes about 8 servings. 

Prep time is about 20-30 minutes depending on your knife skills, cooking time is about another 20-30 minutes.

INGREDIENTS

1 medium red onion

1 pound of carrots

1 large yam or sweet potato (or 2 medium)

1 large russet potato (or 2 medium)

1 large rutabaga

2 medium turnips

2 medium parsnips

3-4 cups of water or broth (chicken or vegetable)

2 minced garlic cloves

1-2 pounds of smoked sausage/kielbasa

1 1/2 teaspoons of kosher or sea salt

1/2 teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper

1 teaspoon of whole peppercorns

6-8 whole allspice (tied into a cheesecloth bag)

3 tablespoons of dried parsley

lemon juice to taste

1/2 cup of fresh cilantro, roughly chopped for garnish

METHOD

1. Prepare the onion, carrots, yam, potato, rutabaga, turnips, and parsnips by washing and peeling
2. Cut the vegetables into bite size pieces, aiming for all to be similar size so they cook as evenly as possible
3. Place the vegetables into a large soup pot and add enough water or broth to cover all the vegetables.
4. Cut the sausage into bite size pieces
5. Add the garlic, sausage, salt, ground pepper, peppercorns, allspice, and parsley.
6. Add additional water or broth so all the ingredients are covered
7. Bring the soup to a boil and then simmer until the vegetables are still firm but can be poked with a fork with some resistance, at about 20-30 minutes start poking for doneness
8. Taste and add fresh squeezed lemon juice and additional salt to your taste
9. Serve with cilantro sprinkled on top of each serving