17 October 2019

This time round on Knidos Cookery Club we’re cooking up a chowder, a creamy soup crammed with fresh, seasonal vegetables that’s ideal for the chillier nights of autumn.

These days chowder is a name given to any creamy soup that has been thickened with the addition of flour or crumbled crackers. The name of this soup is thought to come from chaudron, an old French word for a cauldron – it was originally brought to north America by sailors who made it as a fish soup thickened with ship’s biscuit and cream.

Some versions use a tomato base, but our version is based on the creamy base and uses coconut milk and chickpea flour to make the sauce. We’ve added some of the last of this year’s corn on the cob and some new season pumpkin, that vegetable that is a harbinger of the colder months of the year. Combined with the holy trinity of soup bases – onion, celery and carrot and a potato, this chowder, garnished with lemon zest and celery leaves, is a soup to savour.

Ingredients (for 3-4 servings)

• One large potato
• Two large carrots
• Three sticks of celery
• One medium-sized onion
• One corn-on-the cob
• 200 g pumpkin
• One lemon
• One bay leaf
• Two teaspoons dried thyme
• 50 ml olive oil
• Three tablespoons chickpea flour
• One litre coconut milk (50 g desiccated coconut + one litre of water).

Method

• Make the coconut milk first by blending the dried coconut with the water using a hand-held blender for two minutes. Strain through a sieve separate the liquid  from the leftover coconut, the latter can be saved and used to make energy balls, biscuits, cakes or added to your breakfast muesli.
• Heat the olive oil in a heavy-based pan and then add the sliced onion and fry for five minutes over a medium heat. Add the diced carrot and celery and cook for another five minutes. Now add the chickpea flour and dried thyme and mix well. Now add the pumpkin, potatoes and coconut milk and a bay leaf.
• Cook over a low heat, stirring occasionally, until the potato is just cooked. Add the juice of the lemon and half the lemon zest and stir well. Cook for a few more minutes and then remove the bay leaf and serve in bowls and garnish with the rest of the lemon zest and chopped celery leaves.