How to Make Fresh Coconut Cream
Everybody Loves Coconut
Do you like using coconut cream in your cooking? It gives that bland rice a new flavor and makes soup much sweeter. However, it's most likely that you would get yours processed from the local grocery. But what if you could make your own fresh coconut cream? In this lens, I will show you how to make your own fresh coconut cream.
Have You Tried This Before? - Take This Poll
This is just a short survey to establish how many of our readers have actually tried grating fresh coconut to make cream. Don’t worry, you don’t have to take this if you don’t want to.
Have you ever grated fresh coconut to make cream before?
The Coconut
A Closer Look
Firstly let’s look at the coconut itself. The coconut is a family of the palm tree. Its fruit, which we extract cream, is technically a drupe – not a nut – and the name cocos is Spanish for ‘grinning face’, from the three small holes on the coconut shell that resemble a face.
In the Pacific the coconut has a number of uses like timber, thatching, roofing, rope from it bark. However, it most basic use is as an essential ingredient in tropical dishes and as I previously mentioned, I will now show you how to extract fresh coconut cream.
Get Crunching
Get Under the Coconut Spell
Before you start extracting coconut cream, you have to have:
- a husked coconut;
- a scraper; a device designed to grate coconut flesh, and;
- someone will to do the manual grating.
It is also very important that you must wash your hands before preparing any food.
Let's Get Started
Crack Open the Coconut
Firstly, crack open the coconut by hitting the side of the coconut with a strong object preferably something thin like the blunt side of a machete or piece of metal. If you do it correctly, the coconut will split right in the middle. This will make it easier to grate.
If you are a child attempting this then I suggest getting an adult to to this bit for you. If you are an adult, take extra care. We don't want you ending up in the hospital nursing an injured hand.
Now the Hard Work
Grate the Coconut
The next thing is to start grating the coconut flesh. This is by scraping the flesh of the coconut with the grater. The grated flesh will fall into a dish or container.
Now that you have grated coconut you can extract the cream.
If you find this method complicated then try this method on WikiHow: How to Grate Coconut (14 Steps with pictures)
The Fun Part
Extracting the Juices
In a dish or bowl, add water to the grated coconut flesh and then squeeze it to extract the juice. The juice is then filtered to another container to remove the waste leaving only the cream. The cream can now be used for cooking.
You can filter it several times to remove the grated waste. However, it won't kill you if eat it.
Cooking with Coconut - Buy Books to Help You Master Cooking with Coconut
Now that you have successfully extracted fresh cream direct from the coconut, try cooking with it. Below are some good cook books you can use to cook with coconut.