Minestra Cake aka RIP Kale-Chard-Bean-Sausage Minestra

RIP Kale, Chard, Bean, Sausage Minestra.

Last week, we had a double edition of kale soup (minestra). It was yummy the first time, yummy the second time.

But there was simply too much of it the second time.

By Sunday, we still had about 2 L of the soup and I don't think we could have eaten it all. There is the problem of it being a very hearty soup: one bowl and it's hard to eat more. I can definitely see it being Tuscan peasant food. Cheap and filling, not to mention extremely healthy. Goes a very long, long way.

So feeling the necessity to finish off this soup of necessity, we thought to try cooking it as a cake.

[ts]
I happened upon someone who made a ribollita cake, so we thought we'd give it a try.

Here's us winging it:

The soup.



We wanted it to be a bit "drier" so that it would become a cake. So we just turned the heat on and let it reduce/let the liquid evaporate.



It took quite a while before it was "dry" enough. I then thought that perhaps an egg would help the mixture set.

(aside: Look, these eggs are so pretty!!!)



I added the eggs and mixed it in.




We let the cake sit there in hopes that a crust was forming underneath. We then put it under the broiler to let the top brown. (Because there was no way to turn the thing over.)



And here it is! It was so hard cutting a piece out and having it remain intact! (In the picture is a chicken drumstick and some olives & mushrooms.)





[js]
Unfortunately, it tasted better in its incarnation as soup. We're calling this at 8:35pm on March 2, 2008.

Bye, soup! That was a good run.

[ts]
The cake was tasty, but I liked it better as a soup as well. Perhaps we'll make a proper frittata with kale, sausage and beans next time. ;)

P.S. I told JS that we should just freeze the rest of the soup for consumption at a later date. But noooooo, she didn't want to!


[js]
I don't like freezing things, especially leftovers. Whatever the thing we're freezing, when we decide to freeze it, it's already dead. We're just delaying the inevitable by putting it in the freezer. Nobody takes it out of the freezer and eats it at a later date. It's dead.