Fresh for February: Moroccan Chicken Curry

The Balanced Writer's Moroccan Chicken Curry Soup

 A balanced menu is just as important as a balanced checkbook in my opinion, and even on a budget there's no excuse not to incorporate all kinds of fruits and vegetables into our meals.

This past month I found a copy of The Daily Soup Cookbook in Chattanooga while visiting a friend and couldn't wait to get back home and try some of this New York restaurant's famous soups. Some are on the exotic side, and that's a great opportunity to discover new flavors and veggies and introduce them to the family.

This past week was a fun experiment cooking with Eastern ingredients such as curry and turmeric. We sampled the Moroccan Chicken Curry Couscous soup recipe featured in this fun cookbook, but of course I had to make a few tweaks here and there to make it my own. For example, this original recipe calls for fava beans, but I couldn't find them, and I wasn't sure if I wanted to throw too much at the kids at once. I also substituted quinoa for the couscous because of gluten issues, and there were some other veggies I dropped off the list because I feel in most cases, less is more.

The soup was tangy, pungent and delicious. Don't skip the kale in this recipe, and use all of the spices as called for. You won't be sorry!

Moroccan Chicken Curry Soup

Approximately 6 cups

2 large bone-in chicken breasts

5 cups of water

1/2 chopped Spanish onion

1 chopped red bell pepper

1 chopped celery stalk

1 minced garlic clove

1/2 tablespoon of minced ginger

1 teaspoon of salt

1 teaspoon of ground curry

3/4 teaspoon of ground coriander seeds

1/2 teaspoon of tumeric

1/4 teaspoon of pepper

1/8 teaspoon of cinnamon

1/2 butternut squash, peeled and cubed

1/2 bunch of chopped kale

Directions: Heat a little oil in the bottom of a soup stock pot, and brown the chicken breasts on both sides. Add water and boil chicken until tender and cooked through. (Add more water if needed.) Remove chicken and skim off fat from the broth. Pull the meat off of the bones and discard the skin and bones. Return the chicken to its broth and simmer. 

Saute the onion, pepper, celery, garlic and ginger in 1-2 tablespoons of oil until soft but not brown. Stir in the sugar, salt, curry, coriander, turmeric, pepper and cinnamon. Turn the spiced vegetables into the chicken broth and add the butternut squash. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer 15-20 minutes, with pot partially covered until the butternut squash is tender. 

Remove from heat, and stir in the chopped kale. Allow the soup to rest 5-10 minutes covered so kale can steam and absorb flavors. Serve hot with bread.

Options: You can add a 1/2 cup of quinoa or couscous to this soup. The original recipe source also used fava beans, chopped zucchini and cilantro.