It’s a cold spring night and I’m home alone, sitting on the floor by the woodstove with coconut fish chowder.

I served myself a shallow bowl so the chunks of fish and corn shoulder up out of the broth. I’m warm and content, sipping the slightly spicy, slightly sour broth between sweet bites of last summer’s corn and soft pieces of wild-caught cod.

I think of my grandfather, growing up on a small island off the coast of Maine. I know his family didn’t eat coconut milk, but they certainly ate a lot of fish.

Casually influenced by ingredients from other parts of the world, this meal of mine feels comforting, the way that making and sharing an old family recipe might bring some sense of hope that things both change and stay the same.

MAKES: 4–6 servings

Coconut Fish Chowder Ingredients

2 tablespoons coconut oil
1 large white onion, finely chopped
3 cups sweet corn, fresh or frozen
1 jalapeño pepper, finely chopped (seeds removed, if you like, to tame the heat) Salt and freshly ground black pepper
3–4 cups water
1 pound white fish (cod, haddock, halibut, sole, etc.)
1 (14-ounce) can coconut milk
Juice of 1/2–1 lime
1 cup chopped cilantro

Instructions

1. Heat the oil in a soup pot over medium heat. Add the onion and sauté until translucent, 3 to 5 minutes. Add the corn and jalapeño and season with salt and pepper. Sauté for 1 to 2 minutes, then add 3 cups of the water. Bring to a simmer and let cook gently, uncovered, until the corn is tender, about 5 minutes.

2. Add the fish. You do not need to cut it up; it will flake apart into perfectly bite-sized pieces as it cooks. Stir often while the soup returns to a low simmer. The fish fillet will begin to break apart as you stir, indicating that it is starting to cook through. Cook until its color changes from translucent/clear to white/opaque, 5 to 15 minutes, depending on the thickness of the fillet.

3. When the fish is just cooked through, add the coconut milk and a tablespoon or so of the lime juice. If the coconut fish chowder seems too thick, thin it with a bit more water. Season to taste with additional lime juice, salt, and pepper. Stir in the cilantro just before serving.

Cilantro with Seafood: Eating cilantro with fish is a sustainable way to help the body process heavy metals and other toxins that may be found in wild-caught fish. The cilantro acts as a natural chelator, binding with heavy metals and helping to pull them out of the body. We see here, once again, how food preparation techniques can serve as powerful tools of transformation.

_____________________________________

Well Being Journal adapted the above excerpt from Recipes from the Herbalist’s Kitchen by Brittany Wood Nickerson. Copyright © 2017 by Brittany Wood Nickerson. Reprinted with permission from Storey Publishing, an imprint of Workman Publishing, a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.