Thai Coconut Soup
A Raw Vegan Recipe with Shortcuts
You can buy both young coconuts and frozen kefir leaves at Asian markets, but you can also find the young coconuts at many health food stores. Young coconuts have a delicious jelly-like meat inside, along with some of water which is super-high in electrolytes and nutrients. These are a staple food to many raw foodists. The only drawback is that the seemingly impenetrable husk takes some practice in learning how to open, but I provide a shortcut so that you can enjoy this soup often:
Asian markets also usually carry frozen shredded young coconut meat in their frozen food section. They are slightly preserved and do contain sugar, so while defrosting I open the package and place the frozen coconut meat in a colander so that the sugared water will run off. Then run fresh water over the meat for several minutes to remove the rest. You can also buy some preservative-free coconut water to blend with the defrosted young coconut.
THAI COCONUT SOUP
Serves 1-3
Ingredients:
1 young coconut (flesh and water)
½ garlic clove
½ inch fresh ginger
½ cup water
½ cup pineapple (reserve ¼ cup cut into small pieces)
2 kefir leaves
juice from 1 lime
½ tsp. Celtic sea salt
1 TB. agave or honey
1-2 fresh or dried chilis
Directions:
Scoop out the soft meat from young coconut and place in blender with the coconut water. Add the rest of the ingredients EXCEPT: ¼ cup pineapple, 2 kefir leaves and reserve 1 chili
Blend for 1 minute – taste for spiciness and adjust by adding additional chili if needed.
Blend again for several minutes until the blades warm the mixture. If you prefer a warmer soup, heat gently on stovetop but do not allow to boil as this will destroy the enzymes and nutrients.
Break kefir leaves into small pieces and stir in gently – allowing their flavor to steep into the warmed soup.
Stir in the pieces of pineapple and garnish with a dried chili pepper.
Add any additional items for more texture:
Corn (defrosted) or shaved off ear
Diced cucumber
Shaved slices of shitake mushrooms
Crumbled kale chips