Portugese Caldo Verde

A warming bowlful for a chilly February day

Portugal's favourite soup was exactly what I had in mind on a cold day on the mud-flats in northern Portugal when I stopped for a midday break at a trucker's pull-in, always a good source of how the locals really like to eat. In this case, caldo verde, 'green broth' - a soup so thick with shredded greens it's a meal in itself.  It's rated Portugal's national dish - after salt-cod fritters and açorda, a paella-like dish prepared with breadcrumbs rather than rice.  With a cookbook to deliver on the regional cooking of Spain and Portugal, I was on the last lap of a month-long road-trip that had taken me from the dunes of the Algarve to the forests of Tras os Montes (beware of bears) to the old capital, Braganza (almond pastries with seductive names baked by nuns). 

 My final port of call, as recommended by Maria Lourdes Modesto, the nation's TV Chef in the 1980's, is caldo verde's land of origin, the floodplain between the Minho and the Douro rivers - one slow and stately and the other fast and wild - a region known for rolling hills, terraced vineyards, red-roofed villages and fertile market gardens. As with much of Portugal's traditional home-cooking, caldo verde is prepared without meat. 

The main ingredient is a dark-leaved member of the cabbage family thought to have its origins in Galicia, land of the Celts, across the border in Spain.  Galicia is known for rain, cows, inshore-fishing and the second holiest place of pilgrimage in Europe after Rome, Santiago de Compostela (there's a special cake, more of which later)  Sheltered from the elements in the restaurant beside the gas-station, some twenty truckers are eating in silence, apart from the usual slurping that accompanies a satisfying bowlful of just what the doctor ordered. 

The dish of the day, the reason we're all here, is a green soup as thick as porridge, steaming hot and prepared to order - which is as it should be, with galegas, the leaves of a special variety of cabbage, deep green and chewy, that's cropped in the same way as kale, by gathering the outer leaves without destroying the plant.

The secret of the brightness and sturdiness of the broth is in the shredding of the cabbage, which should be, says Maria Lourdes, as fine as angel's hair.  Portuguese cooks use a special instrument, a mandoline, with two sharp blades set into a wooden frame, to achieve shreds fine enough to cook rapidly in the broth without losing brightness and texture.

Optional accompaniment, for those who need a little meat, is a chunk of home-cured chouriço. To aid digestion, a liberal pouring of lightly-fizzy red wine - a vinho verde, the young wine of the region - drunk, as tradition dictates, from a pottery bowl.