Radish Green Soup

If you’ve ever been to Portugal, you know that a meal without a soup just isn’t possible. Even the Portuguese McDonald’s serves soup, I’ve been told. And there’s a fast-food chain serving only soups!

The inspiration for this soup comes from the most famous Portuguese soup, caldo verde. But instead of Portuguese kale, traditionally used in this soup, I opted for radish greens – a part of radishes I wasn’t used to eat! But they actually taste better than the actual radishes, if you ask me. They have a pleasant, nutty taste, and can be used fresh in a salad as well.

If you’re a meat eater, feel free to add a couple of slices of choriço per portion. Instead, I added some Backerbsen, or traditional German soup pearls.

For 4 portions, served as a starter:

•  200g leek


• 2 garlic cloves


• 450g potatoes


• the greens of 2 radish bunches


• olive oil


• salt and pepper to taste


• Backerbsen, if available


• water or vegetable broth, about 1 liter, divided

First, peel the potatoes and cut into cubes. Wash the leek and chop it. Peel and slice the garlic. Heat olive oil in a saucepot, add potatoes and leek and fry over a low heat for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the garlic and let fry a 1-2 minutes. Then add water or broth to amply cover the vegetables, and salt and pepper to taste. Cover and let simmer over a low heat until potatoes are tender, or some 20 minutes. Puree with a hand mixer.

In the meantime, prepare the radish greens. Wash them thoroughly and chop, using a knife or scissors. Boil about 300ml water or broth in a smaller pan. Add 2 pinches of salt (not needed if using broth) and the radish greens. Let cook until the leaves are cooked but still somewhat crunchy. It goes quite quickly!

To serve, divide the pureed soup onto four soup plates. Then divide the radish greens on the plates – with a bit of their cooking water, especially if the soup is very thick! Then sprinkle some olive oil, salt, and pepper – and Backerbsen, if available. Enjoy with a slice of good bread – and good conscience!

P.S. Unfortunately, one needs to peel the potatoes to make this soup. But instead of throwing them away, you could deep-fry them in oil, sprinkle with some salt, and serve as chips! Remember to use organically grown potatoes and wash them well.

Rösti - the Foolproof Recipe

As the title suggests, this originally Swiss dish consisting of potatoes, salt, and butter or goose fat, is not so easy to prepare as one would  think. There is a huge amount of recipes available, and my first attempt to making rösti at home was such a catastrophe that I decided never to try it again.

My mistake that time was to use raw potatoes as that particular recipe suggested. This resulted in a grayish mass that I just wouldn’t get cooked thoroughly. Yuck.

But in my quest for low-budget dishes I thought I’d have to give rösti another try. I did some research on the subject, and tried out a new method, in which unpeeled potatoes are cooked for a few minutes, the let stand for a couple of hours, then peeled and grated - and voilà! This time, my röstis turned out perfect. So here’s a foolproof recipe for the tastiest dish that ever was made out of potatoes:

For 5 portions you need:

• 500g potatoes


• one medium-sized carrot


• salt to taste


• some olive oil or butter for frying


• 5 organic eggs (optional)

Choose potatoes of more or less the same size. Wash them well, place in a pan and cover with water. Add 1 tsp salt and bring to a boil. For medium-sized potatoes, cook for 8 minutes. If your potatoes are small, 6 minutes is enough, if very large, you might want to cook them a bit more. Place the potatoes in cold water and let stand at least until they’ve cooled. If possible, cook the potatoes in the morning and let stand until dinner-time.

Now, peel the potatoes and grate them coarsely. Peel the carrot and grate as well. Combine the grated potato, carrot, and some salt (I used 1/2 tsp). Heat oil or butter in a large pan (I was using 2 pans to be able to fry all 5 röstis at the same time). With wet hands, form 5 flat “cakes” out of the potato mass. Fry over medium to low heat from both sides, until golden brown and cooked form the inside as well. This will take about 10 minutes per side.

Once thoroughly cooked, place röstis on a serving plate. If you want, you can fry 5 eggs and place one fried egg on top of each rösti. This results in a decadently delicious dish…! I had made one rösti per person, but if you’re very hungry (or your guests are), I’d recommend two per person. Serve with a green salad and a beer - natürlich!