Fumbling Toward Culinary Talent: Cabbage Soup with Smoked Sausage

I followed the base recipe for a traditional cabbage soup today since I had a head of cabbage in the fridge that I needed to use soon. And I also had some smoked turkey sausage that I had been looking to use for a while.

Ingredients:

1 whole sweet onion, diced

1 bell pepper, roughly chopped

2 shallots, chopped roughly

3 scallions, the whites cut into medallions

4 cloves of garlic finely chopped

4 cups of low sodium chicken stock

2 cups of water

2 carrots, sliced into medallions

2 medium size potatoes, peeled and diced

1 small head of green cabbage, quartered and chopped into ribbons

1/2 lb. of smoked sausage, cut into half moons and browned on a skillet

Salt and pepper to taste

1/4 cup of chopped fresh parsley

Small smidge of smoked paprika

Smidge of Herbs de Provence

I sweated down the onion, bell pepper, shallots, garlic, and scallions for maybe 10 minutes on medium-low and then poured in the chicken stock, water, carrots and potatoes.

Bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer. After roughly fifteen minutes, put in the cabbage smoked sausage. Get the concoction to the simmer stage again, and then let it do its thing for about fifteen minutes more. At the end, add in the salt, pepper, herbs, paprika, and parsley.

I was surprised by how this soup turned out. Since the cabbage is simmered for a short time, it comes out with a slightly sweet taste. Although I've always enjoyed corned beef and cabbage, I don't usually eat a lot of this vegetable because I don't know many dishes that call for it. And let's face it, when people think of vegetables, cabbage is not one that leaps into their minds. Cabbage, sexy it ain't. Even the sound of the word is guttural and ugly sounding almost to the extent that it could get verbed, such as "The criminal cabbaged his victim" or "My ex-wife, she cabbaged me up real bad."

If I ever can get my get my hands on some andouille sausage, that good stuff would be an excellent replacement for the smoked turkey sausage in this recipe even though the fat content in andouille is a much higher than what I used today. But hell, andouille is good with just about anything to me -- in soup, with pasta, on a pizza, inside of a bun, etc.