Hi, I'm Scott Samuel here at The Culinary Institute of America.
Today, I'm going to show you how to make a white bean and sausage soup with kale and basil pesto.
This is a very simple soup, incorporating cannellini beans or great northern beans. I'm also going to be cooking down some
onions and garlic, finishing it with some kale, and garnishing with the basil pesto.
Let's take a look at the basis of the soup, before we get going.
We have white beans, and I used cannellini beans, and in this case, I'm going to be using canned beans.
We're going to start with onions, garlic, bay leaf, and I'm going to cook down the sausage, and
add a variety of spices, that are kind of in the andouille spice family.
So, we have cayenne, thyme, paprika, some dried sage, salt and pepper....
And this will be the base of the soup. Once I have got the base, and a lot of flavor,
that's when I'm going to add the white beans, and I'm going to take my Lacinato kale, also known as dinosaur kale,
and add that, and will simmer for 15 to 20 minutes, and we'll have a very tasty soup.
This soup is geared towards food service in high schools, so it has a very mild flavor.
So, the first thing I want to do is start with the base of the soup.
So, I'm adding olive oil. We could use canola oil if needed.
And I'm going to add garlic and white onions.
And over medium heat, I'm going to cook this down, until the onions just start to color.
And, then I'm going to add my pork sausage.
So, this is the beginning of most classic soups: cooking down vegetables in the onion family.
In this case, white onion and garlic.
And I usually add a pinch of salt right here,
and that kind of extracts the moisture from the onions, and enhances the caramelization that I'm going for.
So, this will cook down for about - I don't know - five or ten minutes,
before I add my pork sausage. And my spices.
And then, once I have some great color on the pork sausage, I'll add my canned white beans, and my kale, and simmer for about 15 or 20 minutes.
All right, so these onions are starting to get a little bit of color.
And I really like to cook all these down, to get the bite out of the onion, so I take the raw flavor out, and develop a sweetness to it.
And that's the base of the soup.
I'm going to add my ground pork, right now.....
And break it up and get this cooked down, until I get a lot of color, caramelization of the cork is going to add the color.
[sound of wooden spoon hitting metal pot]
All right, so this is looking good. We're getting a little bit of color.
Since spices are fat soluble,
I'm going to add it right onto here. There's my paprika, the cayenne for a little bit of heat,
dried thyme, dried sage.....
And these are all spices that you would find in Andouille Sausage. But I've written this recipe to use.....
pork sausage, which is a little bit more accessible than Andouille Sausage in the high school arena.
A couple bay leaves,
black pepper,
pinch of salt.
Alright, so now is when it starts to smell really nice.
And develop the depth of flavor.
So, I've been cooking this on medium high heat, to develop the color the whole time....
[sound of wooden spoon hitting metal pot]
Breaking up the sausage as I go.
All right, now is the time to add our chicken stock, which have just heated up for this process.
And we're going to add our four cups of white beans.
So, there's a couple ways to do this. I've chosen canned beans.
Because they're a lot easier to come by in a school food service.
If I did want to use dried beans.......
which is another way to go, I can go ahead and do the whole method of soaking overnight and then.....
.....draining and using new water. I would probably bring it to a simmer, and cook them partially,
and then add them at this point, and simmer until tender within the soup.
The white bean - canned white bean - method is a lot easier for foodservice, but this would also work. Doing a dried bean method.
Let's take a look at the kale, the next item that we're going to add to the soup, while this comes to a simmer.
So lacinato kale (dinosaur kale), you hear a lot about it. Everybody is serving kale, it's healthy, I like it.
And the way I work with it is, I'm going to go ahead and take the stem off,
which tends to be a little bit fibrous and bitter.
And if you're not using this type of kale, curly kale will also work.
And if you can't come across kale, spinach will also work.
Kale takes a little bit of time to cook. It's a braising green.
So, in my recipe, I have it cooking for about ten minutes within the soup, so it has a chance to break down.
If I was doing spinach, I'd only have to cook it for a couple minutes.
So, kale: very easy once we've stemmed it.
We're going to give a simple chop.
[chopping sounds]
All right, I'm going to bring my soup up, adding my three cups of chopped kale.
So, I'm going to bring this to a simmer and cook it for about ten to fifteen minutes.
We'll give it a taste, we'll season to taste with a touch of salt if needed.
Other than that, this can be made ahead of time, chilled and warmed up for service.
All right, while this is cooking, let's go ahead and take look at our basil pesto, which I'm using fresh basil for.
And if I wanted to, it's something that could also be purchased as a "basil pesto."
A lot of companies will sell a nice frozen basil pesto.
It's not necessary to have the basil pesto, but I like it because it freshens it up.
I'm going to make a fresh one.
And I just go into a Cuisinart with that.....
I'm going to add my olive oil......
And some recipes for basil pesto will call for raw garlic. I chose to *cook* my garlic in olive oil for a period of time, to take the sting away.
So, a bit of roasted garlic, roasted walnuts....
pinch of salt
[blender sounds]
And this is the first step for classic pesto.
Grind up all the ingredients, and then I'll add my olive oil.
[blender sounds]
All right, add my cheese.
And I'm just going to pulse this, to bring it together.
And this could be made ahead of time, refrigerated for five days, or put into the freezer, for about a month.
So, when it's summertime, you can use a bounty of basil and make this and save it.
All right, there is our basil, and....
We can use it use it just for a garnish on the soup, or it goes great with pasta.
I'm going to go ahead and give it a season to taste.
And the recipe, I say "lift it up with some salt at the very end."
And I'm using kosher salt for this.
All right, this has had a chance to cook for about 15 minutes. The kale has softened up.
The flavors have come together.
At this point, I can cool it completely and chill it and serve it tomorrow,
or it's ready to serve for lunch. So, let's put some together.
There we go. I'll give it a little drizzle of olive oil, for the fun of it.
But there we go. Our white bean, sausage, and kale soup with basil pesto.
Enjoy!