
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons butter
- 1 large onion, peeled and diced
- 1 or 2 chicken breasts, diced
- 2 medium potatoes, sliced 1/2 inch thick
- 4 cups raw radish tops (the green part)
- 4 cups chicken broth
- 1/3 cup heavy cream
- 5 radishes, sliced 1/8 inch thick
Directions
- Melt butter in a large saucepan over low heat. Stir in onion and chicken. Sauté until barely tender.
- Mix in potatoes. Then, mix in all radish tops. Stir around in butter.
- Pour in chicken broth. Bring to a boil. Then, reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes.
- Cool soup slightly. Pour into a blender and blend until smooth.
- Put soup back in the saucepan. Add heavy cream. Cook slowly, stirring gently until blended thoroughly and desired temperature is reached. Serve with fresh sliced radishes on top.
- Note: For a chunkier soup, omit mixing in the blender. The soup will be thicker that way and not as smooth.
Radish-Top Soup is made of the greens from the radish, not the radish itself. It’s delicious and doesn’t taste how you think it will. The soup will only be hot if the radishes are hot. If you don’t grow radishes, you may have to go to a larger grocery store or a farmers market to get radishes with greens. But it’s worth the effort.
Until recently, soup wasn’t a part of our weekly family menu. We had chicken soup or vegetable soup now and again, but we didn’t have much variety – until my brother began growing tomatoes in his garden. A few years ago, he started bringing a lot of his homegrown tomatoes to us. So, we started counting them. In all, he gave us 708 tomatoes that summer. Tomatoes were everywhere in our house, in various stages of ripening, as my brother had to pick them early before the deer ate them. We had a great time finding dishes to make with all those tomatoes. Naturally, Tomato Soup was one of our favorites. Bean Soup was another.
The next year, my brother grew 15 varieties of tomatoes in a 10-by-15-foot (or so) garden, and he gave us 1,562 tomatoes. What we couldn’t use right away, we froze. A lot of the tomatoes went into Tomato Soup, and we found we liked it year-round.
We started making other soups as well as incorporating tomatoes into our existing recipes, such as Bean Soup. They were a wonderful addition. We used up all the fresh tomatoes in place of canned until they were gone. Now, we eat soup year-round; it’s a nice, simple meal for any season.
We also like to try creating soups that differ from the usual ones out there to keep mealtimes interesting. Here’s a mixture of traditional and not-so-traditional soups to try with your household. Radish-Top Soup and Kale Soup may not be your usual choice, but they’re surprisingly good.
You can tailor each soup to your taste; add or subtract ingredients to make each recipe uniquely yours.
Usually, I move my soup to a slow cooker once it starts to simmer. Then, I don’t have to watch it. It may take a little longer to cook, but simmering allows me to complete the day’s chores and lets the soup slowly come together as I work – which also fills the house with an enticing aroma. Serve all your soups with a tossed salad, a sandwich, rolls, or freshly baked bread.
Remember, soup is for all seasons. These are just a few possibilities.
A well-published writer with an appetite for life, Katie Martin brings a warm glow to ordinary things, making them extraordinary.