The other day, I ate at Trafficjam and Snug---a wonderful restaurant in Midtown Detroit---with some friends. While there, I had this soup, and decided that I would try to copy it. This is my current iteration; I think it's pretty close, but I would have to go back and have a bowl at the restaurant to compare.Smoked Turkey Soup with Great Northern Beans and Collard Greens
- Soak one pound of great northern beans overnight.
- Dice two onions, two stalks celery, and one green bell pepper. Sweat in olive oil in a large pot until soft and golden brown.
- Add two smoked turkey legs, and about three quarts of water
- Add two teaspoons dry thyme, a tablespoon dry parsley, a teaspoon or two of crushed red pepper, two bay leaves, and plenty of black pepper.
- Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and cook for about three hours, until the broth has some flavor and the meat is starting to fall off the bones. Pull out the turkey legs and add the beans.
- Disassemble the turkey legs. They have a lot of little bones and bits of cartelidge in them, so this can be somewhat painstaking, but if you cooked it long enough the meat pretty much slides right off the bones. Anyway, pull off the meat, discard the smaller bones, put the large bones from the center back in the soup, cut up the meat, and add it back as well.
- Cook for another hour to hour and a half, until the beans are soft.
- Wash one bunch of collard greens. Cut out the stems in the middle, and stack and roughly cut the leaves into 1/2 inch wide strips crosswise. Add to the soup.
- Cook for twenty minutes or so, season with salt, pepper, and plenty of Tobasco sauce, and serve.
