Basic Curry Soup

As I said in my first post, my Mother is a great cook. Not long ago, she told me about a curry soup recipe she got from an old cookbook and said it was pretty tasty. She read it off to me and I use it all the time because it is so versatile. The soup itself is kinda boring but it is a great base to add vegetables or chicken. Here is the basic recipe:

2 tablespoons of diced onion
3 tablespoons of butter
4 teaspoons of a good quality curry
1 tablespoon of flour
3 cups of chicken stock
1/2 cup of white wine
4 egg yolks
2 cups of cream

Saute' the onions in the butter until opaque. Add the curry and the flour. Stir until the flour is cooked then slowly wisk in the chicken stock and wine. Let it simmer for about 30 minutes. While simmering, separate the eggs and lightly beat the yolks and set aside. After 30 minutes wisk in the yolks until fully incorporated then add the cream. Stir, taste, and adjust seasoning.

That's it......pretty easy.......and pretty boring.

Let's back this thing up a little bit and see what we have in the fridge that we can add like: zucchini, squash, spinach, corn, chicken, shrimp, crab meat......get the picture?

So now, peel and dice a nice sized zucchini and add it the sauteed onions and cook until the zucchini is cooked but still firm then follow the rest of the recipe. Once finished, if you want, take half of the soup and run it through a blender and stir it back in so it will still be chunky but more soup-like. Now make it more interesting by adding diced cooked chicken, fresh baby spinach leaves and sweet corn and you got something. Add a little truffle oil and you really got something. Or....forget the chicken and add cooked shrimp. I would use the frozen popcorn shrimp you can find at the supermarket.

Healthy right? Well, make it fat-free as well by substituting fat-free yogurt for the cream. Add the yogurt 1/2 a cup at the time until you get to the thickness you want.

You dump all that stuff in the soup you have a meal not a first course and I like it better cold than hot.

Another serving suggestion is to serve it in shot glasses as a hors d'oeuvre.

Anyway, fool around with it. Add what you want and serve it the way you want.

What do I pour with it? Clearly a white wine not red and I favor the citrus undertones of a sauvignon blanc over the dryness or oakiness of a chardonnay.