Tuscan Soup

I know that you have eaten and loved the version of this soup from the famous Italian American resturaunt chain, and so have I.  When I saw a recipe on pinterest i just had to try it.
I did, and I loved it, but there were a few things that needed to be redone to make it more like the famous soup, at least how I remember it.

Here is my recipe:

Tuscany Soup ( Zuppa Tuscana)

·                     4 slices pancetta (if you don’t have it two slices of bacon) diced

·                     1 lb ground hot Italian sausage

·                     1 large yellow onion, diced

·                     4 cloves garlic, minced

·                     6 cups (48 oz) chicken stock (1 and half boxes)

·                     3 cups russet potatoes, sliced ( like small ones sliced)

·                     3/4 tsp sea salt (don’t use salt until you taste, some sausages are flavorful enough

·                     1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper

·                     3 cups kale, in bite size pieces

·                     1 cup half and half

·                     parmesan cheese, grated (omit if you don’t need it)

In a large pot, cook the pancetta until crispy. Drain the grease. Add the sausage, breaking it apart as it cooks.(if you have good lean pancetta and sausage you may not need to drain. American bacon may cause more  drippings)  Once sausage is browned and crumbled, drain off grease leaving a tbsp to saute the onion.

Remove the sausage and bacon. Saute onion until translucent; add garlic; saute until slightly golden.

Add back the sausage and pancetta.  Stir in the stock and potatoes, season with salt and pepper, and simmer for about 20 minutes or until potatoes are tender.

Add kale simmer for  a minute or two.

Turn off heat, and stir in half and half.  Check temp of soup. If still hot serve, if not put on low heat to bring back up to temp.  Do not boil once the milk goes in.

  Top with parmesan cheese, when serving. 

The original recipe called for bacon, and while the soup was lovely, I thought there was to much of smokey flavor that overpowered the rest of the soup.  I like the pancetta better for this application.  The flavor is wonderful, but there is no smoke to overpower the rest of the ingredients.  That being said, if you are not going to make it because you don't have pancetta or can't get it at your store, by all means make it with the bacon.  It is still wonderful and worth the small time it takes to make this recipe. 

I also added more stock as I found that the potatoes took a lot of stock and there was not enough juice to go around.  I switched out the cup of full cream for half and half. The soup can handle the reduction in fat.  I would even go to whole milk if milk was not such a commodity in my house with my two children.  It is such a commodity that I would never "waste" whole milk on testing a recipe.  HAHAHA!

I hope that you try this recipe and enjoy it as much as I did.  Please leave me comments on the blog if tried the recipe.