I'm a great fan of coconut and I used to use a lot of tinned coconut milk but recently, examining the ingredients listed on the label I've discovered that the proportion of actual coconut in most brands of can has decreased and the space is now taken with thickeners and fillers. Not good. I decided that my use of tinned milk would cease but replacing it with fresh coconuts is quite hard work. Your coconut should be fresh and healthy looking, they don't keep forever so buy it from a source where you know the turnover is good.
First you have to poke its eyes out with a strong skewer. You'll need to poke out at least two and ideally three before the liquid inside will pour out easily. This juice can be used in cooking if it smells pleasant. If it doesn't your coconut is probably a dud and should be discarded.
It always helps to get a second opinion from an expert at this point.
Opening a coconut open is hard. Some people drop them from high places on to hard floors, I prefer a trusty and weighty hammer. Mind your fingers and tap it firmly on the equator, it should crack and then it can be broken apart.
Then you have to take the meat from the shell. It's usually possible to pry chunks out by slipping a knife blade or a spoon handle between the white part and the outer shell. A little gentle pressure should encourage large pieces to spring out but sometimes it's very tightly attached, all you can do is break the shell smaller and move on the next step.
Having taken the flesh from the shell the thin brown skin must be peeled off, leaving only white coconut meat. I cut mine into fingers because I had some foolish idea I could use a little mini-hachette to grind it for me, but it was too tough for such a small machine and I ended up grating it by hand.
The grated coconut can now be used to make coconut milk by adding hot water and straining or can be used as it is in curries and chutneys. It can also be frozen if you can't use a whole coconut's worth at once.
It's a lot of work so I've not given up on all coconut products, coconut butter and oil are useful and so is creamed coconut, sold in hard blocks that can be dissolved in hot liquid for cooking.
2 comments:
Have you heard there's a coconut shortage at the moment?
Good heavens, that would explain the change in formulation. It's a huge commodity market though, I'm surprised a shortage would affect the high end retail side which must be relatively small compared to industrial uses. Or maybe not.
Actually I blame speculators in food market futures but that's not really something to discuss here.
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