Coconuts 101

Before buying a coconut, shake it to make sure it contains liquid; the more there is, the fresher the coconut. Coconuts without liquid, or those with moldy or wet "eyes," are likely to be spoiled.

Coconuts may range from 1 to 3 pounds; an average one weighs about 1.5 pounds and will yield from 3 to 4 cups of chopped or grated meat.

To open the coconut: Puncture 2 of the 3 eyes of the coconut by hammering the sharp tip of an ice pick or screwdriver through them. Drain the coconut water into a cup if you wish to save it. Coconut water is rarely used for cooking but may be served as a beverage.

Smashing a coconut open with a rock is a messy business in the kitchen, but the nut can be opened neatly by the application of pressure in the right place. After draining the water by punching holes through the "eyes," hold the coconut as shown above, and with the back of a cleaver give the shell a sharp blow a little more than a third of the way down from the top. Turn the coconut an inch or two and tap again, and keep on turning and tapping until you hear a noticeably different sound - the sound of the shell cracking. A thin but visible crack should run all around the shell at that point and the top of the nut can be pried up quite easily. The first time you try this you may have trouble finding the shell's "fault line," but keep trying, it really works.

The tapping of the shell with the cleaver in the opening process should have loosened the meat inside so that it falls away from the shell in large sections. If not, rap the shell of each piece again and cut the meat out with a knife.

To grate coconut: With a swivel-type peeler or small, sharp knife, pare the brown skin. Then grate the meat, piece by piece, with a hand grater.

To make coconut milk: pare the brown skin and chop or break the meat into small chunks. Measure the meat required by the particular recipe and drop it into the jar of an electric blender. Add an equal number of cups of hot (not boiling) water and blend at high speed for 1 minute. Stop the machine and scrape down the sides of the jar with a rubber spatula. Then blend again until the coconut is reduced to a thick, fibrous liquid. To make coconut milk by hand (without a blender), you begin by grating the peeled coconut piece by piece, into a bowl, then measuring the meat and stirring into it an equal amount of hot (not boiling) water.

Then proceed as follows: scrape the entire contents of the blender jar or the bowl into a fine sieve lined with a double thickness of dampened cheesecloth and set over a deep bowl. With a wooden spoon, press down hard on the coconut to extract as much liquid as possible. Bring the ends of the cheesecloth together to enclose the pulp and wring the ends vigorously to squeeze out the remaining liquid. Discard the pulp. One cup of coarsely chopped coconut meat combined with one cup of hot water should produce one cup of coconut milk. (In the Pacific the grated coconut is often squeezed with only a few drops of water added, which produces a thicker "cream....")

For recipes that specify rich coconut top milk, let the milk stand at room temperature or in the refrigerator for an hour or so until the liquid separates and the richest part rises to the surface. Skim off this top milk with a large spoon. If you do not want to use the top milk separately, stir the liquid well before cooking with it. Tightly covered and refrigerated, coconut milk can be kept safely for about 5 days.