Going Raw: Adventures in Uncooking

Thai Coconut Soup

Oh my gosh, I cannot believe how long it has been since I have been able to share a recipe. The days go by too fast! Luckily, this recipe is worth the wait.

This is an amazing Thai coconut soup that is so flavorful and delicious that in the week following my discovery of the recipe, I made it THREE times. I continue to make it all the time and it still seems like a special treat!

INGREDIENTS (serves 2-4)
Inspired by The Sunny Raw Kitchen’s coconut soup recipe
coconut milk from 1 young coconut*
3 cups of water
juice from 1 lemon
1 tsp lemon zest
3 green onions
2 celery stalks
a few stalks of cilantro
2 garlic cloves
1/2 inch peeled fresh ginger root
1/2 red bell pepper
1/4 cup coconut oil – optional
a little less than 1/4 cup sesame oil
1 tbsp tamari
2 tsp agave nectar
Salt to taste
Pinch of cayenne pepper
* Young coconuts are white and kind of angular; they are not the brown, round and hairy older coconuts that are more popular in USA grocery stores. You can usually find young coconuts in Asian markets.

Optional Toppings
sesame seeds
red chili flakes
cilantro
spring onions
tomatoes
mung bean sprouts, or other sprouts
crumbled nori sheets, or dulse granules

First, open a young coconut, pour out and save the coconut water, and scrape out the coconut meat. Blend the coconut water and meat together to make milk. If this sounds like a lot of work, I must admit that it can be time-consuming the first time you do it, but once you learn how it becomes simple. There are plenty of good coconut-opening tutorials online, and I am going to post my own step-by-step instructions soon too. You can also use this substitution:

SUBSTITUTE FOR FRESH COCONUT MILK
Blend 2 cups of dried, unsweetened coconut flakes with three cups of water. Blend until it looks like milk, then strain it and get rid of the pulp.
Coconut flakes do not really qualify as a living food — since they have been bagged for so long before purchase — but at least they can be bought raw. No matter what, I prefer using coconut flakes instead of canned coconut milk because canned coconut milk is very processed, and in my opinion, not nearly as tasty as fresher options.

Once you have made your coconut milk, the rest is super-easy: throw everything into a blender. Yep, just blend together the coconut milk, lemon juice and zest, green onions, celery, the leaves from the cilantro, garlic cloves, ginger root, red bell pepper, coconut oil, agave, salt, cayenne, tamari, and sesame oil. (Although sesame oil may or may not be a staple in your kitchen pantry, try not to skip this ingredient since its distinctive flavor is essential to the success of this recipe.)

Blend until completely creamy. Depending on your blender this may take a few minutes. Then strain the resulting liquid so that you get the silkiest, smoothest soup possible. Get rid of the pulp, or if you have a dehydrator, you could probably use the pulp to make some sort of cracker.

Then, serve in your favorite bowls and add whatever toppings you like. The image at the top of this post has chopped spring onions, cilantro sprigs, chopped red pepper and dulse flakes as toppings; the image below has mung bean sprouts, cilantro leaves, sesame seeds and tomatoes.

The image at the top is actually from my mom’s kitchen, and the bottom image is from the last time I made this recipe. At the time I didn’t have any red pepper which is why my soup looks green — mostly due to the cilantro. I think it looks better with a rich red hue, so I definitely recommend using the red pepper. Then the color of your soup will look like my mom’s soup above.

Once again, I cannot stress the deliciousness of this soup. It’s very filling as well. So, if you like coconut at all I highly recommend that you try this out sometime… and let me know how it goes!