Recipe: Making a richer corn chowder with help from sunflower seeds

Recently, I've been smitten with sunflower seeds.

Admittedly, it's not an ingredient I normally think much of. In fact, sunflower seeds tend to remind me of really bad salad bars from the '80s. At least, they did until I recently enjoyed an entrée made almost entirely of sunflower seeds served to me at the pretty amazing Relae restaurant in Copenhagen.

The folks behind this dish — Christian Puglisi and Kim Rossen — wowed me with a risotto made from sunflower seeds instead of rice. The seeds formed the "rice" as well as the sauce (they were pureed). It was rich and creamy and savory in ways that left me craving more. It also inspired me to work on cracking the code for a home version of the dish.

In the meantime, I've been reaching more often for sunflower seeds.

Try toasting them in a dry skillet, then adding a splash of soy sauce. They are great sprinkled onto a salad (sorry, '80s), or even better over a mound of ricotta cheese with a drizzle of honey and a side of rye crackers.

And when I recently was looking for ways to improve a basic summer corn chowder, I again reached for sunflower seeds. The result? A cream-free chowder that nonetheless is rich and creamy.

Want to make it vegan? Substitute olive oil for the butter and vegetable broth for the chicken broth.