INGREDIENTS FOR RAW COCONUT MILK: Coconut Water from - 1 Thai Coconut Coconut Meat from - 1 Thai Coconut
DIRECTIONS FOR RAW COCONUT MILK:
Using a heavy butcher knife, chop into the Thai coconut on four sides of the pointed top – making a square. This may take several attempts before the knife actually punctures the hard inner shell, however, with practice and a good knife, you will soon be able to puncture it with only four strikes to the coconut.
Insert the edge of your knife into the side that is punctured most thoroughly and lift the top of the coconut off, revealing the water inside. Be careful to steady the coconut as the water is often full to the top and we want to loose as little as possible of the water.
Pour the coconut water into a container. It is often best to pour quickly so that the water makes a steady stream into the container instead of running down the coconut while you are trying to pour. Don’t worry if this happens a little at first; just tip the coconut further toward an upside down position until it is flowing steadily into the container. As with all things, we all get better with practice.
* NOTE * Each coconut is different and some will have more water while others will have more meat. Though this can make a difference in the consistency of your coconut milk, it is often not significant enough to worry about. If it is important to you, and you find a favorite consistency that you desire to duplicate, simply measure both your coconut water and your coconut meat and create your own “recipe”. As seen here, we have gotten approximately 3 cups of coconut water.
We will now take a spoon and “scrape” the coconut meat from the walls of the hard inner shell. As this is a young, Thai coconut, the meat is soft and is removed relatively easily. For the top, we simply “scoop” it off. Some use this same method for the inside, however, we have found that if you invert the spoon (as shown) the coconut meat will come off of the sides more easily and in more complete pieces, making them easier the handle.
When removing the coconut meat, soft parts of the inner shell may still be attached. They appear as brown spots (as shown) and can simply be “shaved” off with a knife. Don’t worry about making it all white, if some of the brown is left behind and none of it is hard or fibrous, it will not affect the flavor of the coconut milk.
Again, not all coconuts are the same and the amount of coconut meat you get will vary. As seen here, we have gotten approximately 1 cup of coconut meat. This gives us 3 cups of water to 1 cup of meat.
Now we simply combine the coconut water with the coconut meat, process in a blender until smooth, and we have raw coconut milk to either serve or use in recipes.
Using a heavy butcher knife, chop into the Thai coconut on four sides of the pointed top – making a square. This may take several attempts before the knife actually punctures the hard inner shell, however, with practice and a good knife, you will soon be able to puncture it with only four strikes to the coconut.
Pour the coconut water into a container. It is often best to pour quickly so that the water makes a steady stream into the container instead of running down the coconut while you are trying to pour. Don’t worry if this happens a little at first; just tip the coconut further toward an upside down position until it is flowing steadily into the container. As with all things, we all get better with practice.
* NOTE * Each coconut is different and some will have more water while others will have more meat. Though this can make a difference in the consistency of your coconut milk, it is often not significant enough to worry about. If it is important to you, and you find a favorite consistency that you desire to duplicate, simply measure both your coconut water and your coconut meat and create your own “recipe”. As seen here, we have gotten approximately 3 cups of coconut water.
When removing the coconut meat, soft parts of the inner shell may still be attached. They appear as brown spots (as shown) and can simply be “shaved” off with a knife. Don’t worry about making it all white, if some of the brown is left behind and none of it is hard or fibrous, it will not affect the flavor of the coconut milk.
Again, not all coconuts are the same and the amount of coconut meat you get will vary. As seen here, we have gotten approximately 1 cup of coconut meat. This gives us 3 cups of water to 1 cup of meat.
Now we simply combine the coconut water with the coconut meat, process in a blender until smooth, and we have raw coconut milk to either serve or use in recipes.