But if you use sausage, use good sausage. It'll be worth it. We didn't, and paid the price -- a basically really good soup with disappointing sausage.
They're right -- the first boil for the cabbage makes for a much nicer soup.
Also, in the process of making my God-damn pumpkin curry (recipe unremarkable and not linked, results decent but not exceptional), my wife's fingers began to hurt rather a lot from chopping chiles. She feels this should be mentioned.