A Taste of the Tropics

Wayne wanted to try a real coconut. The one we got in Hawaii was a dud, so we picked up an ordinary one at the local grocery store. Here are the tutorials I used as I figured out how to make it edible.

Using the Oven to Crack the Shell - It actually worked! First you preheat the oven to 400° and pierce the "eye" of the coconut to drain out the water. Then bake it for 15 minutes until it cracks on its own. Let it cool for another 15 minutes or so, and then you can separate the "flesh" from the hard shell. You'll also need to use a vegetable peeler to get the other brown "skin" separated from the white flesh. It's easier to do that with larger pieces as opposed to tiny ones, just so you know.

Using the Blender to Make Coconut Milk - This worked too! I only used the flesh from 1/2 a coconut and one cup of water. Put those two ingredients in the blender and pulverize the coconut. Then line a strainer with some cheese cloth (over another bowl), pour the mixture from the blender into it, and twist the cheese cloth. Out comes about a cup of coconut milk. The surprise to me was all the dry, flaked coconut inside the cheese cloth. Now I get to figure out what to do with that!

I used the coconut milk as the base for our Chicken Curry for dinner.