For the Love of Food

As I briefly explained in my last post, I was at a house-warming party last weekend. We had a delicious Salzbraten and there were plenty of delicious salads and cakes.
As a starter, we were served a delicious curry apple & carrot soup with homemade croutons.

I may have never told you this, but for years I have had a fear of curry. I like to blame it on my first taste of curry at the Kinsolving cafeteria at UT. Normally, the food was good, but the dishes they prepared on “India Night” were just “blah”. Needless to say, my Indian friends were disappointed with that night’s meal.

After eating this delicious soup prepared by my friend’s mom, I wondered how many other delicious dishes I have missed out on because of my fear of curry. It wasn’t just “not that bad” – it was good! Actually, I was quite surprised to find out that curry is not a spice from a, oh, I don’t know “curry plant”, but rather a combination of spices like Italian Seasonings or Tandoori Masala.

Unfortunately, the recipe that my friend gave me was one of those vague recipes with the instructions reading “a lot of …” and “a little bit of…”. And, when you’ve never made a recipe before or watched someone else make it, it’s really hard to decide what’s a little or a lot of something to someone else.

So, I worked with what I had, and this is what I came up with!

Soup:

Ingredients:
500 grams of Carrots, peeled and chopped
2 sour Apples, peeled and chopped
1 small red Onion, chopped
1 Tablespoon of Olive Oil
2 Tablespoons of Curry powder
Sal, Pepper, Curry to taste
200 grams of Sour Cream
1,25 Liters (3 Cups) of Chicken broth
Homemade Croutons (see recipe bellow)

Directions:
Heat oil in a large pot. Saute the carrots, apple, and onions in the curry powder for 1-2 minutes. Pour 1 Liter (2 Cups) of the chicken brother over the mixture and cook until the carrots have softened (about 20 minutes).
Remove from heat, let cool, and puree in a food processor or with a blender wand.
Return to heat, add salt, pepper, some more curry to taste. Then, pour in the rest of the chicken broth and the sour cream and mix well. Heat until warm again.
Serve with homemade croutons (see recipe bellow).
Makes 6-8 starter servings or 4 full-meal servings

Homemade Croutons for 6-8 servings of soup:
Ingredients:
6 slices of White Bread, cut into cubes
1/4 Cup of Olive Oil
1/8 teaspoon of Salt
a dash of Pepper

Directions:
In a skillet (preferable cast iron), heat the olive oil, salt and pepper until warm. Add the cubes of bread and coat with the olive oil mixture. Stir every few minutes until the croutons are toasted on all sides.
Remove from heat and serve in soups or salads!

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