Spicy Midnight Soup

My best friend made this the other day and I just had to have the recipe. It's filling and soooo good! The recipe can easily be halved. This recipe comes from a German cookbook and a German packet of leek soup is enough for 3 cups of water. As far as I can tell from looking on the internet that's the same for Knorr leek soup in the US. If I am wrong please use enough of the soup mix to make 9 cups. If you add the optional ingredients you might want to reduce the amount of whole kernel corn, otherwise the soup becomes really thick. Where I live you can buy cans of whole kernel corn that have some kidney beans added, those work really well. Can easily be prepared ahead and reheated.

• Ready In: 25 mins
• Serves: 8

Ingredients

• 1  lb turkey breast or  chicken breast fillets, chopped into bite sized chunks or  red chile, deseeded and finely chopped
• 24  ounces whole kernel corn
• 3  tablespoons butter
• 3  tablespoons curry powder
• 8  cups water
• 3 (1 7/8ounce) packages  leek soup mix
• 5  garlic cloves
• 1  cup  cream
•  chili powder, to taste
•  cayenne pepper, to taste
• 1  small leek, finely sliced
• 1 (15 ounce) can red kidney beans, drained and rinsed (optional)
• 1 (8 ounce) can pineapple chunks, with (optional) or 1 (8 ounce) can  without some of the  juice (optional)

Directions

1. Heat the butter in a large stock pot and fry the turkey or chicken chunks until very nearly done.
2. Add the curry powder and fry for a further couple of minutes, if you are using leek you can add it at this stage.
3. Add the water, bring to the boil, add dry soup mix and stir until disolved (check that your soup mix says to mix into boiling water, some of them need to be mixed into cold or warm water).
4. Add all other ingredients, apart from the cream and the spices, and simmer for 5-10 minutes until everything is heated through.
5. Add the cream and season to taste (quite spicy) with chili powder and cayenne.
6. Serve with crusty bread.