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Cracking a coconut demands technique and
practice. First, select a mature coconut with a brown husk. Shake it:
you should hear juice sloshing inside. Soak the coconut in water for a
minute, to tame the brown fibers, then locate the "three-dot-face" on
one end of the nut. Using an ice pick or a slim screwdriver, perforate
one or two of the dots and pour the juice trapped inside into a bowl.
You can drink the juice or, like the Vietnamese and Indonesian, use it
in cooking.
Spread newspapers on a solid surface, such
as a kitchen floor or sidewalk, and place the coconut on them. Using the
dull edge of a cleaver or a hammer, make several quick, determined
whacks across the equator of the nut until it cracks. Continue to strike
with the hammer, breaking it into smaller pieces. Then with a small
knife, pry the meat from the shell and peel off the thin brown skin. Cut
the meat into 1-inch (2.5cm) pieces and pulverize it, a few pieces at a
time, in a food processor. One coconut will yield about 3.5 cups (1
lb/500g) pulverized coconut.
To make coconut cream, put the pulverized
coconut into a bowl and add 1.5 cups (12 fl oz / 375ml) hot water. Let
steep for 10 minutes, then pour through a fine-mesh sieve or piece of
cheesecloth (muslin) over a bowl and press or squeeze the coconut to
expel as much liquid as possible. Place the squeezed coconut in another
bowl. This first pressing, about 1 cup (8 fl oz/250ml), is coconut cream
and is primarily used as oil for frying spices pastes. For coconut milk,
the liquid used in curries and soups, add 3 cups (24 fl oz / 750ml) hot
water to the same coconut, let steep for 15 minutes, and repeat the
straining and squeezing. This step yields about 2.5 cups (20 fl oz /
625ml) coconut milk. Repeat this step for thin coconut milk. Refrigerate
the milk and cream and use within 3 days.
Many Southeast Asians are able to avoid
the messiest part of this task by buying already grated meat from market
vendors, who prepare it on the spot with a machine. Once home, cooks
have only to steep the coconut to make the various grades of milk and
cream.
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