Swedish Garlic Mince Patties with Italian Kale and Cannellini Soup

I've been struggling to think of what to cook for dinner lately, in particular something that's relatively quick to do. We've been having our bathroom renovated, something that's taken almost twice as long as originally indicated and it's surprising what a dramatic change in our lifestyle it has been. So cooking nice dinners has been far from my mind, but I had two recipe cards quite high up on the pile of things to do, so I decided to try them out. The first one is Swedish and from a Cash and Carry that my parents used to frequent, thus it's also designed for 10 portions originally. I've halved it for a more manageable amount. The original Swedish name is Vitlöksjärpar.

The second recipe card is Italian and from Waitrose. I've only cooked kale once before and it was far from successful, but I know it can taste lovely if done well, so I thought I'd give it another go. Besides, Lundulph has been asking to have more green greens in our diet. The recipe also had Savoy cabbage and that's quite nice as well, I think.I didn't buy the branded ingredients, so made some adjustments to the amounts based on what I did manage to get hold of.

Ingredients

Garlic mince patties
3 large cloves of garlic
1 medium sized onion
1.25 dl breadcrumbs
3 dl milk
600 g beef mince
1 large egg
1.5 dl chopped fresh parsley
1.5 tsp salt
½ tsp ground black pepper

Kale and Cannellini soup

2 cans (400g) chopped tomatoes
2 cloves of garlic
2 tbsp olive oil
100 g Savoy cabbage
200 g Kale
1 can (400 g) Cannellini beans
Salt and pepper

Method

1. Starting with the patties, pre-heat the oven to 200 ° C and grease a baking tray with a lip. Peel the garlic and onion, then finely dice the onion, or better even whizz in a food processor.
2. Place the breadcrumbs in a large bowl and stir together with the milk, then leave to soak swell for about 10 minutes.
3. Add in the mince, egg, onion, parsley, salt and pepper. Press in the garlic and stir through to combine everything evenly.
   
4. Using two large metal spoons, form quenelles and place on the baking tray, a couple of cm apart.
   
5. Place in the oven to bake, 20 - 40 minutes depending on size.
   
6. Moving on to the soup, place the canned tomatoes in a large deep pan. Add to them a can and a half of water, this is a good way to rinse them out.
7. Peel the garlic and press it into the tomatoes and add the olive oil.
8. Bring to the boil and in the meantime, wash and shred the Savoy cabbage and the kale. Drain and rinse the beans.
9. Once the tomatoes are simmering, add the Savoy cabbage, stir through, cover and simmer for 5 minutes
10. Next add the kale and the beans, stir through again, cover and simmer for a further 10 minutes.
11. Season with salt and pepper.

I wasn't able to fit all of the mince mixture in the tray, I think there was enough for 3 more, so I froze it for future use. But I quite liked the idea that there was no frying involved, just baking, so this worked out to quite a healthy meal. This time the kale cooked well and so, we had a lovely tasting soup. The only odd thing about it was that the recipe didn't have any seasoning at all. The patties were quite garlicky, so the combination was rather good, but if doing just the soup, salt and pepper and Italian herbs would be really good, I think.

The amounts worked out equally well too, we had both patties and soup left over for another meal a few days later and one more small portion for Lundulph at the end.