RECIPE | Green vegetable soup with meatballs

Popeye, watch out! After all this spinach, you’ll have competition.

Ingredients (enough for 6-8)

• 8 fresh pork sausages

• 2 tablespoons flour

• 2 tablespoons oil

• 1 bunch spinach, leaves and stalks chopped separately

• 1 head broccoli, flowers and stalks chopped separately

• 2 large leeks, white portions chopped

• 2 garlic cloves, crushed

• 2 potatoes, grated

• about 1 l stock

• 1 cup frozen peas

• salt and pepper to taste

Here’s how

1 Carefully squeeze the sausage from their casings and then roll the meat into small bite-sized meatballs. Roll the meatballs in flour and set aside.

2 Heat the oil in a potjie and fry the meatballs until brown. Remove the meatballs from the potjie, but keep any fat – you can even add another glug of oil if it looks too little. Now fry the spinach and broccoli stalks, leeks and garlic until the vegetables are soft and fragrant and just start to get colour.

3 Stir in the potato and stock and simmer for about 20 minutes.

4 Add the peas, spinach leaves and broccoli flowers and cook for another 10 minutes or until the vegetables are soft, but still distinct.

5 Gently mash the soup with a potato masher or use a handheld blender if you prefer. The texture of the soup depends on how you mash the peas and also how small you chopped the other vegetables.

6 Add the meatballs back into the soup and season to taste with salt and pepper.