Slow Cooker Recipe: Caldo Verde

Caldo Verde is a Portuguese rustic soup. Perhaps I should have cooked something more Jubilee-appropriate this weekend, but truly, I couldn’t bring myself to. The rain was falling, the wind was blowing, the baby had come down with a(nother) cold… and finger scones and cold cucumber sandwiches were the last things I felt like making.

It may not be especially patriotic, but Caldo Verde is the perfect dish for cold, snuffly days like these. I make it for my husband, because I don’t eat meat and the main ingredient is chorizo, but the delicious aroma of chorizo and paprika wafting through the house is enough to warm me up. This soup cooks verrrrrrrrry slowly in the slow cooker throughout the day; it’s one of those slow cooker recipes you put on before you leave the house in the morning, and it’s ready for you when you get home from work in the evening.

Now I’ve had a bit of help with this recipe, from the nice people at Sainsburys and Savoo, the savings website. In my capacity as a Savoo DealPro, Sainsburys got in touch to ask, if they sent a gift card would I like to go and see what bargains I could pick up? Hmmm, I said. Yes, I think I would like that very much, thank you!  So off I trotted. I didn’t clear the store (it was rather big), but I picked up a bunch of stuff. Over the coming days and weeks I’ll be featuring the best bargains here, and showing you what I did with them.

So we’re going to start with chorizo, which is currently on special offer at Sainsburys: two chorizo sausages for the price of one (£3.00). Pretty good, especially as it keeps in the fridge for months on end.

The second reason why I like Caldo Verde is that it is made mostly from cheap stock cupboard ingredients:

The only ingredients you will need to buy are these ones:

Plus some cheap green cabbage. I used hot paprika here, but Sainsburys also sells hot smoked paprika, which is more authentic – and cheaper. I couldn’t find it at the weekend, but look for a small, square red tin branded La Chinata. If you don’t have hot paprika but you have the regular stuff, mix it with cayenne pepper – that’s all hot paprika is. The paprika needs to be fairly fresh, though: red, rather than that sludgy brown that paprika turns when it’s sitting at the back of the cupboard and is past its best.

The third reason why I like Caldo Verde is that it’s stupidly, stupidly easy to make. You chop everything up, bung it into the slow cooker with two pints of chicken stock… and that’s it. It takes about 15 minutes.

My version of this recipe is adapted from one in my favourite slow cooker recipe book. If you don’t have a slow cooker, you can make it in your largest saucepan, cooked on a low heat as slowly as you dare.

In case you were wondering, the majestic background to these images is a tray that I picked up at a car boot sale last weekend for £1.00. On trend!

Ingredients

2 onions
3-4 garlic cloves
1 chorizo sausage
3 small baking potatoes
1 tsp hot smoked paprika
2 pints / 1.2 litres hot chicken stock
4 oz / 125g green cabbage
Bread, to serve

Instructions

Thickly chop the onions, potatoes and chorizo. Add to the slow cooker, along with the whole cloves of garlic and the olive oil. Pour in the chicken stock and stir.

Leave to cook on the low setting for 6-8 hours.

Thirty minutes before serving, slice and add the green cabbage.

Season, and serve with warmed bread.

Result:

Total cost from Sainsburys: £3.56.

Serves 6.