Mmmm...Tooters! Your soup sounds yummy... mind bringing me some?? I've never had homemade - just Campbells.
It's a depression-era soup handed down through a few generations.
1 Boned pork roast - butt or shank, bigger the bone, the better.
1 Onion
3 Small white potatoes
2 Cans of Tomato Juice
peel and prep onion and taters.
12 qt. pot, add roast, onion, taters and pour in 1 whole can of juice, then add 1 can of cold water rinse from the juice can. take the second juice and add until roast is covered by an inch or two.
NOTE*** this soup has white beans in it. Old method was to soak raw beans overnight and re-rinse and add now.
I use 2 regular size cans of cooked white beans an hour before it's finished - add MUCH later, like 4-5 hours from this step.
again, raw now. cooked 4 hours later (or you'll end up with mush)
Bring everything to a hard boil and let boil on med-hi for a good 20 minutes (lidded)
Step down to a low, low-med for 4 hours. During time, add black pepper and sugar (small amounts by the pinches) No salt should be needed however if the potatoes over-starch the soup, salt can help neutralize the starchiness. if you over-salt (remb, this is a high sodium base with pork and tomato juice) more sugar will help the saltiness.
Keep adding raw tomato juice as needed for evaporation during the 4 hour simmer.
add white beans at 4 hour mark
30 minutes later add 3 handful of raw rice
Now is the time to pasta fagioli-ize this soup and this is an option only (one I'll probably be dropping now since I'm 'diet' conscious)
add about 1/2 pound of Ditalini macaroni cooked a la dente *** do NOT drop them in raw *** you'll get a severe starch override and the noodles will suck up a gallon of the broth and ruin the whole pot.
Keep lidded on low for another 20 minutes till rice is done.
Post-prep:
remove roast, it should almost fall apart - plate it and let sit for 15 mins.
scoop out the taters
the onion will be ok as is - completely seperated or liquified anyway
if you don't want the carbs and starch of the taters, discard them.
old school does this, mash them down with a fork on a dinner plate to a no-lump consistency and re-enter to the soup and stir in. this will thicken the soup up a bit, not so much flavor, just a nice thickener to a thin brothed soup.
take the pork and pull apart to the size you prefer and re-enter to soup.
stir everything and bring it together.
ladle up and enjoy !!
sounds hard and complicated but it's really a simple soup and you really just sit around all day smelling and a lil fussing with spices but it really frees up your time over the course of the day.
