Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Vegan Clam Chowder

I didn't forget about you Veganbobegan! I have to share this recipe. If you feel like splurging on the somewhat expensive bits, I promise it is amazing. I got it from my sister's friend. Not sure where she got it from originally. It is delicious beyond reason and might even pass for authentic clam chowder for non-vegans. The seaweed is an essential ingredient since it gives it a lovely seafood taste.

Vegan Clam Chowder!

Ingredients

4 cups of cashews
3 Veggie bullion cubes
Olive oil for sautéing
1-ish cup of coined carrots
1-ish cup of onions
1-ish cup of chopped celery
A few cubed red potatoes
1 - 2 Tbl Thyme
2-3 Tbl Ground Fennel Seeds (or if you want to go really fancy you can add in some fresh fennel and sautee it with the other veggies)
Salt and pepper to taste (needs a decent amount of salt if not using bullion cubes)
7 cups of water
Seaweed - One good handful of each: wakame, dulse, arame or some other stringy kind

1. Soak cashews in a blender with enough water to cover them
2. While the cashews are soaking, sauté the onions, carrots, potatoes and celery in the bottom of a big pot on low heat.
4. Once the veggies soft and the onions starting to look clear, dump in the water and add the bullion cubes (or you could just use veggie broth instead) and spices.
5. Bring this to a boil and then turn it down to a simmer for 15-30 minutes.
6. Blend up the cashews into a creamy consistency
7. Add the seaweed to the hot soup and let it hydrate a little bit.
8 Add the cashew cream to the simmering soup, make sure to do this at the end otherwise the oils will get all separated and weird. Simmer for another couple minutes until it reaches a nice servable temperatures and remove from heat.
9. Serve. Add salt and pepper to taste.


This makes a huge amount of food. Great for dinner parties and such, or just half the recipe and you'll still get some leftovers. I also recommend buying the seaweed at a Japanese market. It will be significantly cheaper than anything you can get at a health food store (for example, wakame at kokua was 7.99 same size bag from japanese store across the street 1.99). It might also lead to misinterpretation and a new interesting ingredient (in my case, black miscellaneous noodles instead of arame hah! Still tasted alright) Enjoy!

1 comment:

  1. hey lauren! i'm lookin forward to tryin this recipe out when i really need to impress somebody with some "no-way-that's-vegan" surprise skillz! thanks for not forgetting about lil ole veganbobegan. :)

    ReplyDelete