Soupalooza: Know your curry before adding to creamy cauliflower
It seemed right up my alley — an easy, carefree recipe with a little bit of kick.
The instructions for Curried Cauliflower Soup called for cauliflower, garlic and onions cooked in almond milk with a little curry powder tossed in for flavor. Add a little toasted sunflower seeds for crunch and you're done. How difficult could that possibly be? What could go wrong?
Well, the heat for one. Curry has a kick. Well, some curry has a kick. As it turns out, curry can be complicated. That's because no two curry blends are alike.
Created by blending a number of different spices — cumin, cardamom, coriander, turmeric and cayenne, to name some of the most common ingredients — the variety is almost infinite. Each curry powder can have different component spices, in differing amounts, making each curry blend unique.
And some of them can be very, very hot as I discovered making this soup the first time. I followed the directions and stirred in 2 teaspoons of a generic curry powder, fully expecting it to be fairly mild. Yowza!
Apparently, I was using one of the hotter blends. There's also sweet (or mild) curry. There's Garam Masala, a specialty of Northern India that relies mostly on cardamom, coriander and black pepper. Never mind the fact there are Jamaican curry blends, African curry blends and Malaysian curry blends. The varieties go on and on.
In other words, using curry is not the same as using, say cinnamon or oregano. You need to know the blend you are using.
Of course, you can always make your own curry powder, which is what I wound up doing. The following version is courtesy of the Food Network's Alton Brown. I thought it was just the right blend for my tastes, but be sure to experiment and go slow adding it to any dish until you have a feel for your level of comfort and taste.
In any case, this is a really easy soup recipe and extremely warming this time of year. Just make sure it's not too warm!
• M. Eileen Brown is the Daily Herald's director of strategic marketing and innovation and an incurable soup-a-holic. She specializes in vegetarian soups and blogs at soupalooza.com.