Coconut curry anything grabs your attention, but when you add cauliflower – well, its fabulous. This creamy soup has been in our Pepper & Salt Kitchen catalog for years. It’s a customer favorite, a family favorite and a cook’s favorite because it’s a structured recipe that literally comes together in less than an hour with deep flavors of Thailand. It’s gorgeous in the bowl and if you have any left over, its even better the next day. It’s also a soup that can easily transition into sauce for more roasted vegetables, rice or potatoes – even pasta or for saucing proteins. While we usually make about 60 quarts of this soup at a time, you’ll probably want a little less, so our big recipe has been modified to feed up to 6 big portions.
INGREDIENTS
- 3 T coconut oil (more for kale sauté)
- 1-1/2 C onion, chopped
- 1/3 C shallot, chopped (more for kale sauté)
- 3 T minced garlic (more for kale sauté)
- 1/2 C celery, chopped
- 1/3 C finely grated fresh ginger
- 2 T finely grated fresh turmeric (or dry – fresh is better!)
- 1 tsp toasted coriander
- 1 T cumin
- 2 T fresh lime juice
- 1 tsp lime zest
- 4 T Thai yellow curry paste (Curry pastes differ slightly, so you can add more if needed)
- 2 T sweet yellow curry from Penzy’s
- 6 limes leaves (pull out before blending!)
- 1-2 bay leaves (pull out before blending!)
- 1 LARGE head of cauliflower. About 6-7 cups. Remove leaves, leave in core and coarsely chop entire head
- 1-1/2 Qrts organic vegetable stock (or chicken stock)
- 1 T tamari
- 4 T rice flour (or corn starch)
- 2 C coconut milk (not light)
- 1/4 C chopped organic cilantro
- 2 bunches of lacinato kale (or standard kale), stemmed
- 2 T coconut oil
- 1 T minced garlic
- 2 T minced shallot
- 1 T organic sugar
- 1 tsp sea salt
Heat oil in a large heavy bottom pot over medium high heat. Add onions, saute 2-3 mintues. Add garlic, shallot, celery and ginger and sauté for a few more minutes. Add in turmeric, coriander, cumin, lime juice and zest. Cook for 1 to 2 minutes and add in yellow curry. kaffir leaves, cauliflower, broth and tamari and bring to a boil. Turn down broth to a slow simmer, cover and cook for 8 – 10 minutes. Cauliflower should be very tender. At this point, remove your kaffir and bay leaves. With an immersion blender, blend all ingredients until silky smooth. Sprinkle in rice flour and coconut milk and blend again, removing any lumps that might form from flour. Soup should have a slight creaminess to it. If you want a little more thickness, you can add in another tablespoon of rice flour Season with salt. Garnish with kale sauté and cilantro before serving. (see cook’s notes below for other assembly ideas!)
For the kale sauté:
Remove leafy greens from center stem and rough chop. In a large sauté pan, melt 2 tablespoons coconut oil, add in garlic and shallot and gently stir so not to burn – about (1) minute. Gently toss in kale. It will rapidly wilt, so you only need to really cook this for a couple of minutes. You want to keep the color vibrant and keep a bite to the kale. Sprinkle with sugar and salt and set aside for soup assembly.
Cook’s Notes ~ if you try this soup, please let us know how you made yours!
- I use both yellow curry paste and dry sweet yellow curry from Penzy’s. You can substitute half the paste for dry for a deeper curry flavor.
- Take this soup up a notch and stretch your soup dollars by adding jasmine or basmati rice. Either into the bowl or on the side.
- Roasting additional vegetables to garnish the soup is also a great way to stretch your soup dollars. We have roasted cauliflower and purple carrots ~ beautiful on the soup. You could roast sweet potatoes, parsnips, yukon golds, or broccoli.
- And the addition of cashews, toasted coconut and organic scallions as a garnish – come on!