Looks Gross, Tastes Amazing: Red Kale Soup

A lot of people get turned off by all this green, but there's no food colouring involved, no grass, no bitter, gross vegetables or a bad texture. It's one nutrient-rich, SWEET soup thanks to miraculous kale. Even the red variety ends up green (it's only called red kale because of the red lines in the veins, which you don't see once it's cooked/puréed anyway. I bought it because it looked a little fresher than the green this week at the market). Probably more people would find this soup attractive if it were actually red. That's what I call racist. Well, that and a few other things.

Kale is not chard. There is nothing swiss about it. That's a very important distinction. Chard looks a bit more like lettuce, and it's tough and bitter. Kale is sweet and smooth. Actually the white part is the tastiest. It may have the visual appeal of iceberg lettuce, but it actually tends a lot more toward the flavour of a good bok choy or spinach. Unlike any of the choy family (pak choy, bok choy, etc.) you wouldn't want to smother its bland form in hoisin sauce because it's better on its own. Buy organic and then call me a vegetable genius. So I usually just boil or steam a few long stalks for a side dish, the same as spinach (kale actually holds up better than spinach to cooking anyway. First boil the white stalks for a minute and then boil the leaves for another minute. Or just turn off the heat when you add the leaves and let the pot sit covered to wilt the greens. You kill fewer nutrients this way, but the leaves still soften).

The foundation of a good soup is a good broth. If you don't have any home-made, that's completely okay! Just buy good stuff. Definitely go organic and definitely make sure there's no MSG (monosodium glutamate - a flavour enhancer that's mostly sodium...but worse), corn syrup (candy does not belong in green soup), or things you can't pronounce in the ingredient list. Even some organic ones have yeast in them, so be careful of anything you don't think should really belong in soup, using the guiding principle that home-made broth is just vegetables, recognizable spices, and maybe chicken, beef or fish.

Anyway, the reason this soup was so good was because I defrosted a large yogurt container of home-made shrimp broth leftover from making my seasonal spot prawn stir-fry as the base. All you do is take the shells of however many prawns you shucked, put them in a large pot, cover them with water and bring the water to a simmer (not a boil) for 15 minutes. Then strain off the shells. Voila, stock! Even after making this soup I have 3L of delicious broth leftover in my freezer. That's 2 or 3 more whole pots of soup right there!

Maybe you're not as excited about that as me, but with a soup recipe with only two ingredients that actually tastes good, the potential to make more delicious soup is a cause for celebration.

Ingredients:
About 5 cups broth (home-made or organic fish, chicken, or vegetable. Cubes or powder are fine. OXO is not)
1 package red kale (or green)

1. Bring broth to a boil in a large pot (defrost frozen broth and bring to boil).
2. Tear off leaves of kale and set aside. Add white parts of kale leaves to boiling broth, reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer for 2 minutes.
3. Add kale leaves. Simmer 1 minute.
4. Purée soup in batches in a blender. Return to pot to serve and let the rest cool.

Grand total work time is about 8 minutes if your stove takes awhile to bring things to a boil (add an extra few minutes to defrost frozen broth). The fun part of this is knowing how much kale you're happily eating. You put all this kale in the pot and then once it's puréed you can easily eat half a pot of soup. You probably wouldn't eat the equivalent half a bag of kale if it was just boiled. Well you would if you're me, but I'm an oddity, I know.