Archive: Currying favour: four-tin, ten-minute curry soup

18 April 2007

Often I get a craving for a piping-hot curried soup. Try this ridiculously simple and quick recipe, which I invented on a rainy Sunday afternoon while suffering from an extreme snifter-face*. It's thick, spicy and fragrant, and so tasty that it's difficult to believe that it comes mostly from tins (don't mention that when you serve it, or the lentil-heads** might get you). It takes less than 10 minutes to make (measured from the time you haul your sorry arse off the couch, to the time you carry your bowl of soup back to the couch). To achieve this record-breaking time, you will need a food processor or liquidiser. Do use good, recently ground cumin and coriander, not ten-year-old dried-up crap.

Four-Tin, Ten-Minute Curry Soup
Serves 2 greedy people as a meal, or four as a starter

For the soup:

1 tin chickpeas and their liquid
1 tin tomato and onion mix, or good tinned tomatoes
1 tin coconut milk or cream
1 tin sweetcorn (creamed or normal)
2 fat cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed
1 tsp Tabasco sauce (optional)
1 tsp turmeric
2 tsp ground coriander
2 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp cayenne pepper or red chilli flakes, to taste
juice of 1 lemon

water or white wine to thin
salt and milled black pepper

Topping:
fresh coriander (or parsley), finely chopped
plain thick white yoghurt

Chuck all the ingredients for the soup in a blender or liquidiser and pulse until the mixture is fairly smooth (but not too smooth - there should be a few chunks in it) . Don't over-process it: you don't want bubbles or foam. Tip into a saucepan, bring to the boil, then turn down the heat and simmer for six or seven minutes. If the soup seems too thick, thin it down with a little water or white wine. Ladle into warmed bowls and add a blob of yoghurt and a handful of fresh coriander.

* Snifter-face: what your face looks like the morning after you've had too many snifters. A snifter, in my tribe, is any sort of alcohol you go looking for after you've had way too much to drink. In other words, the last drop of whisky, the dregs of the Tia Maria, the last inch of Old Brown Sherry in the bottle. Also, old bottles of Schnapps you have lying around that you think you might as well finish before the bell goes.

** Lentil-heads: Also known as mantra-catchers, these pesky health freaks are lactose-intolerant, gluten-avoidant, acid-sensitive, and allergic to everything except brown rice and bottled water. Invite them to dinner at your peril.

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