Monday, February 15, 2010
Indonesian Corn Chowder
Tonight for dinner I made an adaptation of the recipe I found in “The Healthy Hedonist” for Indonesian Corn Chowder. Yum!
It starts like my usual recipe: an onion, carrot, celery chopped and sautéed in oil until soft. I used “cultured carrots” - stored by shaving in the food processor and brining, then adding some chopped fresh ginger, garlic, onion and a tiny bit of hot pepper. Lacto-fermented, these have a little tang and are salty. A nice soup starter.
The recipe calls for fresh ginger, lemon grass stalks and a hot pepper cut in chunks and put in cheesecloth to infuse spicy-ness into the soup. I added frozen corn and this mixture of spices and simmered for about 25 minutes, partly covered.
The recipe calls to blend the soup and strain it. I used an immersion blender and just did some. Added a can of diced tomatoes with basil and garlic. Then instead of the recipe’s fresh cilantro and chopped garlic, I added some cilantro pesto....
I also steamed some potatoes, and so I ate the soup over some of those.