Lasang Pinoy 24: The Many Ways with Coconut

The coconut (Cocos nucifera) is not called “the tree of life” for nothing. From the leaves to the roots, coconut has a lot uses which Kai aptly sums up on her announcement of the Lasang Pinoy 24th edition. Let’s go loco over coco!

To go to specifics, here are the many ways that coconut has found its way into my family’s life. For one thing, Our house is made of local materials- sawali, nipa and yes, coconut lumber as walls. In the kitchen, the coconut husk has its rightful place in our grills. We grill with coconut husk instead of the usual charcoal. They are quite easy to lit up and can have you grilling in a few minutes.

We have our staple of dishes that uses coconut as well. Chicken adobo sa gata, ginataang hipon, sinugno, to name a few. For this post, I will share with you a coconut soup. But before that, here are some more ways we have found uses for coconut. Before the virgin coconut oil, we produce our own coconut oil buy cooking coconut cream till it oils. Oops, don’t throw away the grated coconut left after getting the cream. We use this as feed for our native chickens.

Creamy corn and crab soup in coconut milk

Chop 1 large carrot, 1 large onion, 2 bell pepper and five celery stalks. In a pot, add 2 tbsp oil. Add all the choppped vegetables and let them sweat in the pot. Add about eight cups of coconut milk from second extraction. Bring to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste. Add 1 tsp chili flakes. In a bowl, mix 1 cup of coconut cream (from first extraction) and a pack of Knorr crab and corn soup. Add to the pot, stirring constantly until soup is thick. Best served hot.