coconut

[cray]

cray jr. made me buy a fresh coconut.


now what?


anyone have any good recipes where i can use this sucker?

[shawkins]

Well, first you've got to open the @#$^ thing. I recommend a hydraulic press, or perhaps dynamite.

Edit: In the unlikely event that you manage to open it, coconut creme brulee is really good.

[alleycat]

Drain the milk out first, then crack it open and grate it.

Maybe add it to some fresh fruit like peaches or tropical fruits.

Or, just paint a funny face on the darn things and let junior make a pretend friend out of it. Worked for Tom Hanks.

[alleycat]

"Oh, nooooooo, don't eat me!"

[cray]

Originally Posted by shawkins

Well, first you've got to open the @#$^ thing. I recommend a hydraulic press, or perhaps dynamite.

Edit: In the unlikely event that you manage to open it, coconut creme brulee is really good.

thanks.


and you know what they're doing now....
the coconut is scored all the way around. looks like they took a bandsaw to it. it says that you can take a butter knife, put it in the score mark and hit it to crack it right in half.

[shawkins]

I didn't know that.

It's a great idea, but I find it weirdly disappointing. I don't buy whole coconuts very often, but on the rare occasions that I did I sort of relished the challenge of opening the thing. It's so rare to be able to use high explosives in the kitchen.

[L M Ashton]

The liquid inside the coconut milk is coconut water. Coconut milk is made from freshly shredded coconut mixed with water, then squeezed to get all the liquid out of the coconut.

Also, here's a video showing how to open a coconut the easy way.

If you're looking for recipes that involve fresh coconut, I have a couple that I especially like - Pol Sambol and Pol Roti (pol means coconut in Sinhala ). I can dig up a bunch more, believe me. Freshly shredded coconut is used widely here.

[JSDR]

LM, that video was mad crazy. I'll have to dig out my dad's machete and try it.

Coconut shrimp is pretty good. Shred the coconut meat and mix with a little flour. I think.
Dip unshelled shrimp in beaten egg, then into the flour/coconut mixture. Fry until cooked, like a minute or something. I don't really know, I tend to overcook shrimp.

That was an experiment I did a while back, and it turned out tasty.

[L M Ashton]

Any heavy knife will do. I use her weapon of war, usually, but I have used my heavy chef's knife. And yes, it is a bit intimidating, isn't it? She's fearless.

At first, it took me about a dozen or more wacks with the knife to get it to open. I now have it to under half a dozen. I'm not as efficient as my mother in law, but hey, she grew up cracking coconuts open whereas I came to it later in life.

[Lady MacBeth]

Originally Posted by alleycat

"Oh, nooooooo, don't eat me!"

lol.

What about coconut cream pie?

[JimmyB27]

Originally Posted by L M Ashton

The liquid inside the coconut milk is coconut water. Coconut milk is made from freshly shredded coconut mixed with water, then squeezed to get all the liquid out of the coconut.

Also, here's a video showing how to open a coconut the easy way.

If you're looking for recipes that involve fresh coconut, I have a couple that I especially like - Pol Sambol and Pol Roti (pol means coconut in Sinhala ). I can dig up a bunch more, believe me. Freshly shredded coconut is used widely here.

Necro-thread time

I notice in the video that all the liquid goes down the drain - can you not drink it? Or use it some other way?
Also - for those of us who don't have either a score in our coconut or a handy machete, how do you get the blasted thing open?
Explosives are hard to come by in these parts too...

[shawkins]

Laurie's video probably has a better way, but I couldn't get it to load(?).

The last time I had this problem I wrapped it in a towel and whacked it very long and very hard with a very big hammer. That worked, eventually.

The liquid that came out was completely unpalatable--not sure whether that's true of coconuts in general or if there was something wrong with that particular one.

Good luck.

[Silver King]

This thread reminded me of a recent article I came across.

Beyond the recipes, there's a "How to Crack" and "About Coconut" sections that might be of particular interest to some of us.

[cray]

thanks, sk!

[NinaK]

A kitchen machete works nicely too.

[JimmyB27]

Thanks peeps!

[L M Ashton]

Originally Posted by JimmyB27

Necro-thread time

I notice in the video that all the liquid goes down the drain - can you not drink it? Or use it some other way?
Also - for those of us who don't have either a score in our coconut or a handy machete, how do you get the blasted thing open?
Explosives are hard to come by in these parts too...

You can drink it. My mother in law doesn't. In Sri Lanka, there are specific coconuts - called king coconuts - that are for drinking. The king coconuts have very little meat and are full of water, so full that frequently, when you first break into it, the water spurts a bit since it's under pressure. That's really really good drinking coconut water.

And the blunt side of any heavy knife will work.

Originally Posted by shawkins

Laurie's video probably has a better way, but I couldn't get it to load(?).

The last time I had this problem I wrapped it in a towel and whacked it very long and very hard with a very big hammer. That worked, eventually.

The liquid that came out was completely unpalatable--not sure whether that's true of coconuts in general or if there was something wrong with that particular one.

Good luck.

If the liquid is unpalatable, then there might be something wrong with the coconut. That's considered a sign that the coconut should be tossed in Sri Lanka.

[jennontheisland]

I want a kitchen machete.

[Puma]

When I was a kid, we always ran a nail into two of the cocoanut eyes and drained out the liquid. Then a couple cracks with a hammer (with the cocoanut against something solid) and the cocoanut would break open - not a smooth break, a jagged break. We'd then pry pieces of the cocoanut out of the shell and eat it plain (better if you carve off the dark part that was in contact with the shell before eating it.) Fresh cocoanut as actually one of our winter month treats. Puma

[L M Ashton]

Originally Posted by jennontheisland

I want a kitchen machete.

They're readily available anywhere in Sri Lanka. Probably elsewhere in the region, too. Just about every Sri Lankan kitchen has at least one of them.

My mother in law's kitchen machete has to be at least 30 years old, probably 40+. The handle breaks every now and then (as in, maybe every five to ten years) and she takes it someplace to get a new handle. She also has a bigger one, similar to the machete, where she sits on the handle and the blade of the knife is facing up, and that's the knife that's commonly used for cutting meat and vegetables. I think of it as a weapon of war, but it's what people there use. They don't tend to use smaller knives at the kitchen counter - at least, not her generation.

[Lyra Jean]

I put shredded coconut in my banana bread along with pecans and crushed pineapple.

[JimmyB27]

I spent too long faffing about how to open the damn thing and it went off.

[sunandshadow]

The way I always opened them was use a hammer and a solid-shaft screwdriver or other metal punch-type object. Punch out two of the eyes, pour the milk out through one while air goes in the other. Drink it or refrigerate it to drink later. Then put the coconut in a dishpan and just smash the thing with the hammer. It's so good as fresh chunks I wouldn't bother attempting to cook it into anything. Just keep the pieces moist in the refrigerator and eat them like pieces of watermelon or pineapple.

[Hip-Hop-a-potamus]

Hee hee!

This thread makes me think of the old Warner Brothers cartoon with the little squirrel living in Central Park, with a nut cart across the street from him.

He scampers across the street, his eyes widening in wonderment at each larger size nut until he sees the coconut, and he spends the entire rest of the cartoon trying to get the thing open.

On edit: It's "Much Ado About Nutting."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOcGXqs1M5U

[StephanieFox]

My folks would buy me a fresh coconut every once in a while when I was a kid. It's one of my favorite foods. I learned to first poke a screwdriver into two of the 'eyes' and drain the coconut water into a glass. That's very tasty.

Then, I'd take the coconut to my dad's workshop and put the coconut into a vice, close the vice until it cracked. Once it cracked, I take a hammer to it to break it into smaller pieces. Then, I'd pull the meat away from the shell. The meat would have a brown covering, which I'd peel off with a knife.

Then, I'd put some in a container (like a baggie) and store that in the fridge. The rest I'd eat.

It's a lot of work, but I think it's worth it. I never cooked or baked with this, just eat it. Mmmmm.