Test Kitchen - Mustard Greens & Spicy Sausage Soup

When I posted up curly mustard greens last week as my Test Kitchen ingredient, it seemed to stump my most active of Test Kitchen fans at first. They're the ones who are always throwing suggestions my way of how they want to see the ingredients play out but save for the thought of just sauteeing the hardy greens, it was a little more perplexing. Because I didn't want to opt for a regular saute nor did I want to deep-fry anything anytime soon, I thought about the peppery flavor of the greens and wondered how it would hold up in a soup. To find out my answer, I had to (of course) give it a try and hey, this soup has a spicy kick to it indeed. By incorporating spicy pork sausage and letting the flavors speak for themselves, I ended up with a soup to warm you up in no time with its inherent heat. Give this recipe a try yourself!

Step 1: Ingredients (yields 3-4 servings)

• oil
• 1 lb. spicy pork sausage, ground
• 1 large white onion, halved & sliced
• 2 medium potatoes, 1/2" dice
• 2 cups chicken broth
• 2 cups water
• 1 large bunch curly mustard greens, roughly chopped

Step 2: Prepping ingredients
Slice onion, dice potatoes, and chop up mustard greens. In a large pot, add a smidgen of oil to heat before adding in spicy pork sausage. The sausage's own fats will release more oils into the cooking and help with browning the meat. Once the meat has started to brown, add in onions and potatoes.


Step 3: Making the base
Once the onion has started to become slightly translucent and the potatoes are clearing up along their edges, you can add in the broth and water. I opted for chicken broth over beef broth because I didn't want the soup to become overwhelmingly meaty and heavy. The contents were "heavy" enough as they were. Cook this on medium until it just begins to boil. Then add in mustard greens and reduce heat to medium low.


Step 4: Finishing
The greens will wilt almost right away under the heat and with the moisture. To help the process, push the greens into the soup and let simmer on low for 5-10 minutes before turning off the heat. Enjoy!


This week's Test Kitchen ingredient: white truffle salt
My older brother who lives in Brooklyn decided that he wanted to send a care package home full of interesting foodie gifts from a recent local market he visited. Included in that package was a pack of four different and somewhat unique salts from The Filling Station NY. I decided that I wanted to incorporate one of them soon into my cooking so picked the white truffle salt as a Test Kitchen ingredient. Don't worry - you'll see the others popping up sometime in the near future as well. There's plenty to play with!

Described as "Fragrant with a hint of sweetness, this rare Northern Italian Alba truffle is blended with hand harvested grey sea salt, lending a beautifully earthy flavor to your dishes." on their website, this salt sure sounds lovely. Let me know by commenting on the Facebook picture when it goes up of what I should do with it!


Photography by Minerva Thai.