My Vovo's Portuguese Soup

I am half Portuguese, and like any American out there, my diet is scattered with foods that pertain to my heritage, Portuguese soup being one of them. Whenever I used to go over to my Vovo's apartment, she would stuff us with all sorts of foods making sure that we ate our fill. My favorite food that she used to make was the Portuguese soup, a perfect mixture of chourico, potatoes, kale, and a pea soup base. My sister always used to call the soup a perfectly balanced meal, because there are vegetables, meat and wheat if its served with bread.

Cooking the soup turned out to be relatively easy, the process takes a while to complete though. I guess patience really is a virtue. First I had to make the pea soup, which means waiting for peas to dissolve in hot water, but the peas did not all dissolve so I had to fish out a few of the undissolved ones with a spoon. Then you let the chourico soak in the pea soup for flavor along with the kale and potatoes. Before I served the soup to my family I took out the chourico, cut it into pieces (like in the picture), and stirred it back into the mixture. For creating a whole meal, instead of just a desert for once, I found this actually pretty easy.

If you want to reach back to your Portuguese roots or just try this recipe...

• Wash and rinse a bag of split peas
• add the peas to 3quarts of water and let simmer for an hour
• add two chourico sticks and let simmer for another hour.
• add potatoes that are cut in small 1/4 size pieces and continue to simmer
• add 6 cups of fresh chopped Kale

The source of this recipe is my mom, who got it from my Vovo.