I try to start this new soup with the idea of a zuppa toscana, but at the moment that it was done i notice that the molokhia, though tasty, it has not much texture, it does not hold the soup as well as kale. So, there goes to the name of our soup, I end up adding pasta.

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Ingredients:

• 1 tbsp. oil
• 1 small onion, finely diced
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 tsp. Garlic, minced
• 1 lb. Spicy Sausage
• 1 tsp. Smoked paprika
• 1/2 tsp. Fennel powder
• 3 medium Russet potatoes, peeled/diced
• 4 cups chicken broth
• Piece of Paramesano Regiano rind
• 1/2 packet Frozen molokhia
• 4 oz. Pasta, penne style, cooked al-dente
• 1 can Red beans, drained and rinsed
• Kosher salt, to taste
• Fresh ground pepper, to taste

Directions:

1. Preheat a heavy bottom pot, over medium heat, when the coking pot has been heated, add the oil and heated thru.
2. Increase the heat to high and add the onions with a pinch of salt and the bay leaf. Stir onions and lower the heat to prevent onions from burning. Observe and stir frequently until onions are tender to the bite and starting to caramelize.
3. When onions are ready, stir in the garlic until fragrant. Quickly follow with the spicy sausage, make sure to brown the sausage well. Add the paprika and the fennel powder as well.
4. Incorporate potatoes, chicken broth, parmesan rinds, and a pinch of salt.
5. Boil soup for approximately 15-minutes until potatoes are tender.
6. Add the molokhia as soon as potatoes is tender, stir pot without letting the soup to come to a boil, When molokhia is defrost, incorporate the cooked pasta and the red beans.
7. Season with salt and pepper and boil for just a bit. Just for flavors to mingle.
8. Enjoy cooking! learn from the process and read the chef notes for a more through learning experience!

Chef Notes for the Pro-Chef Kitchen

• Why preheating the pot before adding the oil
  • When we throw the pan on the stove, add the oil and turn it on, we are not heating our pan for success.
  • Pans are made of metals and the way metals are compacted makes them porous because the metal is like microscopic threads all compacted together side by side. When this metal is hot, it expands and forms a little crevice in our smooth pan. If we allow the pan to first get hot and then add the oil, the oil will fill the crevices and we will have a better smooth top to start cooking. Preventing like this that we get food stick to our pan.
• Why cooking the onions until tender:
  • Onions have a strong, sulfuric taste when raw, and though we do like onions raw in certain preparations; it is not the same when we talk about sauces, stews, soups and all dishes alike, in those dishes there is no place for a raw, crunchy onion. When onions are patiently cook until tender, the onion texture changes and not even say the flavor. It sort of sweetens on its own and melts away into the preparation you are making.
• Why to add bay leaf to your dishes at the beginning:
  • First thing to know is that bay leaf has a sweet fragrance; and that being said, bay leaf also contributes to the sweetening of the dish. The best moment to extract the sweet flavor of bay leaf is at the beginning of the cooking process, the fat in the onions been the first way the flavor goes out, the heat is the next, and also the sulfuric of the onions contributes to the release of sweetness from the bay leaf.
• Why to stir in the garlic until fragrant
  • First of all, let’s think about the flavor of garlic: pungent, spicy, sometimes bitter; but the one no one recognizes is sweet, because sweetness comes with the cooking of garlic. The wording says stir until fragrant, because after the beautiful smell our sweet garlic, will start to burn and with that the garlic will deliver a bitter taste. If you stir until fragrant and you add a new ingredient into the cooking vessel to stop the cooking of garlic, you will preserve the sweet fragrance to flavor your dish.