Sausage Soup with Potatoes, Carrots and Vermicelli

Name: Sausage Soup with Potatoes, Carrots and Vermicelli
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 30 min
Total time: 45 min
Cuisine: European
Ingredients: Sausages 2-3; Potatoes 3; Carrot 1; Onion 1; Butter 1 tbsp; Soup vermicelli 2 tbsp; Salt, black pepper to taste; Parsley, fresh bread for serving

When I was quite young, we called sausage soup “bachelor's soup”. It said it all about how simple this first course was: a broth of cheap vegetables and sausages. The luxury version had a little vermicelli added. Back then, though, pasta was rarely of good quality and turned into a sticky mush in the soup almost at once. With decent boiled sausage there were hardly ever any problems.

Of all the rumours about the quality of sausages, the most common one is about what goes into them (paper, soy, starch and so on). Buy good sausages from a reputable maker; there are affordable, quality products in the shops. Pork, veal or poultry will all do. Boiled sausage or thick sausages (sardelki) work as well, but best of all are “milk” sausages.

Since boiled sausages are ready to eat, they go into the soup shortly before the end of cooking. Start by boiling the potatoes until half done, then add the fried onion and carrot. When all the vegetables are cooked, add the sliced sausages and a little good-quality soup pasta. Spices can go in at any stage.

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Ingredients

2 servings

Sausages 2-3
Potatoes 3
Carrot 1
Onion 1
Butter 1 tbsp
Soup vermicelli 2 tbsp
Salt, black pepper to taste
Parsley, fresh bread for serving

Step-by-step recipe

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Homemade sausage soup always turns out well if the sausages are good. Quality sausages hardly swell when boiled. How many to add is up to you; many people like plenty. The vegetables are the usual ones: potatoes, carrot and onion, which go into almost every soup.
Pour 1 litre of water into a pot and put it on the heat. Peel the potatoes and cut them into large cubes. Don't salt the water yet. Add the potatoes to the water. Once it comes to the boil, cook them for 10-12 mins. By the end of cooking they should be well broken down; blending into the broth, they make the soup slightly thicker, and the pieces won't be very noticeable.
Peel the onion and carrot. Cut the onion into thick strips and the carrot into thin rounds. Melt the butter in a saucepan or small frying pan. Fry the vegetables in the butter, stirring often, until the carrot is soft and the onion is well browned and a pleasant golden colour. If you can, turn the heat down a little and simmer the vegetables under a lid for up to 10 mins; the sausage soup will be even tastier.
Add the fried vegetables to the pot with the potatoes. Cook for another 15 mins. The fried carrot turns the broth a deep golden colour. At this point you can salt the soup and add a little black pepper. If the carrot is still a bit firm and the potatoes haven't started to break down, extend the cooking time a little.
Peel the casings off the sausages and slice them into rounds no thicker than 5 mm. You can use bologna-style “doctor's” sausage or sardelki instead, and the soup will be just as good. Add the sausages to the soup, bring to the boil and cook for 4-5 mins over low heat. Meanwhile, get the soup pasta ready: small vermicelli such as filini works well, or anelli (little rings) or stelline (little stars).
Keep in mind that small soup pasta cooks in about 3 mins, so by the time you add it the vegetables should already be done to your liking. Add the pasta to the sausage soup, stir well and cook for the time given on the packet. Then the soup is ready.
Ladle the soup into bowls and sprinkle with finely chopped parsley. Serve hot with fresh bread. The soup is very tasty and filling. Thanks to the broken-down potatoes it seems a little thick, though nothing is done to thicken it on purpose. If you like, add celery root or parsnip to the soup for a more intense flavour.
If you like, make croutons to go with the soup from a loaf or white bread. Simply cut off the crust, cut the crumb into small cubes and dry them in a dry hot frying pan until crisp.