Every once in awhile, while watching either Emeril or Paula Dean, we hear them mention that you can use smoked turkey legs instead of ham hocks in soups or greens recipes. Count us in!
We are in full soup-season swing here in New England. As you can probably tell, we like nothing more than sitting in the kitchen on Sundays, watching our beloved Patriots, and constructing a soup all day that is ready for supper, leftovers, AND a freezerbag or two. This past Sunday was no exception (and the Pats won a close one!)...
They have smoked turkey at our local Stop and Shop - it's not fully cooked, but is "smoked"... We grabbed about 3 smoked turkey legs and a couple of smoked turkey wings and threw them in about 12 cups of chicken stock and water and low boiled them for about 15 minutes before adding some veggies that were cut into 1 inch cubes: 1 onion, 2 cups carrots, 2 cups celery and 4 cloves minced garlic.
For seasoning, we threw in some bay leaves, thyme and black pepper. After another 20 minutes, we took out the turkey, removed the skin, chopped it up and put it back in the pot. Our kitchen was smelling smokey-delicious at this point!
We skimmed off the fat, scum, froth, etc and then reseasoned a little - then threw in 2 cans of black-eyed peas and 2 cups of cubed butternut squash. After bringing the soup back up to a boil, we then added 1 head of Savoy cabbage which had been shredded.
Cooked for 30 more minutes, and ta-da a wonderfully smoky bean and cabbage soup!
We'd give this soup about an 8/10. It needed more seasoning to put it over-the-top, not sure what (more pepper!). And I probably would have thrown in rutabega or white potatoes in instead of the squash - which seemed too sweet for the dish. 'Til next time!
3 comments:
Have you ever tried white pepper for savory soups? It adds a pleasant little kick.
Go Patriots!
Thanks for commenting on NAGAPC!
Your soup looks yummy. And rutabaga does sound like the perfect substitution!
Thank you forr writing this
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