Cabbage and kabanos soup

English cooks are so obsessed with chorizo at the moment, that you'd think that no other spicy sausage was worth eating! I'm lucky enough to live in London where lots of Polish food is available, and often cook with Kabanos, which are really tasty, herby smoke-cured pork sausages. I invented this comforting, rich soup during a rainstorm last night.

Ingredients
  • 1 onion
  • 2 cloves of garlic
  • 1 teaspoonful of olive oil
  • 5 long thin kabanos sausages
  • 1 small savoy cabbage
  • 1 litre of vegetable stock
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 50g of dried green lentils
  • 1 teaspoonful of caraway seeds
  • Pinch of ground nutmeg
  • 3 or 4 small sprigs of rosemary
  • A few good grinds of pepper (I used green pepper to use it up)

Method
  1. Chop the onion as finely as you can.
  2. Crush the garlic.
  3. Put a large saucepan on a medium heat and add the oil, onion and garlic.
  4. Cook for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the onion is softened and transparent.
  5. While the onion is cooking, chop the sausages into little chunks, and then add them to the pan.
  6. Cook, stirring now and again, for another five minutes.
  7. Chop the cabbage into little shreds.
  8. Make up the stock according to the packet instructions with boiling water. If you've made your own stock, I admire but also slightly pity you.
  9. Add the stock to the pan and stir.
  10. Add in the cabbage and all the remaining ingredients, and stir together.
  11. Bring to the boil, then turn the heat down to the lowest setting and put a lid on the pan.
  12. Simmer for 30 minutes or at least until the lentils are cooked. Then serve with some hearty Polish familial love.