Spicy Sausage Soup

This soup comes from combining frigid Montreal winters with empty bank accounts and no patience for tasteless food. Throughout university, my roommates and I managed to eat for $5 a day by pooling our money and shopping and cooking collectively. And we ate well. So many of my favorite recipes come from that time and all the constraints of living with your friends, little money, lots of energy, and too much alcohol.

I love any recipe with humble origins — I really believe that when it comes to food, the simpler the better. And what’s more humble than our walk-up apartment on rue du Bullion?

SPICY SAUSAGE SOUP

Versatile, nutritious, cheap as hell and so pleasing — this soup has been on my rotation for years. Just another reason sausage is the best. It takes about 1 hour to make and serves 4. Best with crusty bread and butter for dipping.

6 - 8 links spicy Italian sausage (or plain if you want it mild)

1 small can or tube tomato paste

2 onions, chopped

4 carrots, chopped

1 large sweet potato, peeled and chopped

a handful of spinach or kale (optional)

2 - 4 cloves of garlic

a handful of fresh parsley leaves

1 teaspoon fennel seeds

lots of black pepper and some salt to taste

Remove casing from sausage and brown in a heavy soup pot for 15 mins. Add some olive oil if it’s sticking. Add in the onions and cook until translucent. Add in the tomato paste and crank up the heat to high, stirring constantly, until the sausage is almost burning (mmmm flavor). Now add all the chopped vegetables — I often use carrots, sweet potato, and whatever greens I have but you can use anything you like — and stir for 5 minutes.

Now add just enough water or chicken broth to cover the vegetables in the pot. Add the fennel seeds, some of the parsley and salt and pepper to taste. (The sausage may add a lot of salt on its own.) Simmer for 40 minutes, partially covered. Add water if you think it needs more liquid.

Serve with crusty bread and garnish with parsley.