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I use a coconut grater to get the flesh out of the coconut. First I crack the coconut in half with a cleaver, then grate out the meat with the grater. I got mine in the UK from coconutty.co.uk

This is for indo. I am very interested in the mechanical grater you mention they have in asia. Is there any way I can get it or see how its made. I live in the Caribbean island of Jamaica.

Hi Sam, cut the white flesh into pieces and eat it as such. I love it.
Regards
Bashir

hi .. .
take a look at this ...
I saw it at cookwork before & found this website ...
very handy

[link]

indo

hi .. .
take a look at this ...
I saw it at cookwork before & found this website ...
very handy

[link]

hi Mary ..
sorry, Just got back yesterday and yes I would think it will be ok for more than a week in the freezer ....
So, have you try the scraper ? any good ?

cat

Ooops, I just re-read the thread and cat says you can keep it in the freezer for one week. But surely, if it's frozen it would keep for much longer than that?

Where has cat gone? Does anyone else know how long home made coconut cream will keep?

My coconut scraper has arrived, along with a really lovely little book full of information about coconuts and how to deal with them and several fantastic recipes. I can't wait to get cooking.

The coconut scraper is fabulous. It is made of wood with a metal scraper at each end. It's a bit bigger than a potato peeler but double ended. One end is a curved corrugated blade and the other end is a series of tines with tiny tubes at the end. Gosh it's hard to describe! I wish I could post a link to a photograph of it but I tried before and it doesn't seem to work.

I can't wait to buy another coconut now and start experimenting. Cat, if you make your own coconut cream and don't use it all at once do you know how long it will keep for?

I will let you know what it's like when it arrives

oh wow ... brilliant

have fun then

cat

Oh my! I bought a coconut and there's a special offer on the label. You send for the cook book and you get a 'free authentic coconut scraper'

I'm sending off tomorrow!!!

) have fun Mary

Thanks cat. I have never seen the original grater for sale but I have seen it used on TV programmes, it looks great fun (or should that be grate fun?). I will buy a coconut tomorrow, I think I will use my microplane grater. Tomorrow night I am making Laksa so instead of using a tin of coconut cream as I usually do I will make my own. What fun!

Hi Mary ..

What I meant by horizontally is you hold the coconut piece, flesh down facing the grater and you grate the side horizontally (side to side or right to left , vice versa). Vertically is you hold the piece, flesh facing up, so you grate the side of it with up& down position.
You get more milk from horizontal way since the grated coconut will be more fine.
As far as I know when using machine, they tend to put it facing down and push it through the machine and what you get is the finer coconut.
Just try to experiment with it.
Do you ever see the original hand grater ?.. it's not like what we normally have here. It's more like a lots of short nails lie symetrically, close to each other on a long piece of wood (around 30 - 35cm length and 15 cm wide)

but Mary, I think you can also just try to grate it using the smallest hole in the grater and see the result (it should be very fine)
and use the bigger hole to get a longer result.

Happy experiment
cat

-----, that is very interesting. I am confused about horizontally and vertically though. When I have seen coconuts being grated on those machines you talk about they seem to lie them on the side and grate them. That would be horizontally? But if you stood it up right then it would be vertically ... so I am not sure which way to do it for maximum milk. I can get cheap fresh coconut and would far rather use your tips because at the moment I use the canned coconut cream. Thanks for posting this interesting information.

Hi Sam,

It's more common in Asia to use fresh coconut to get the coconut cream and milk. We never use can overthere and the size of the fresh coconut is twice bigger than we have here.
Normally when we buy coconut in Asia, the market will break it for us and grate it with special machine (you put the coconut pieces in the middle and push it and the machine will automatically grate it and you'll end up with the grated flesh, around 300 - 400 gr) but if you don't have the machine , you have to properly clean the brown colour on the skin after you break it (so when you cook the coconut milk, you will get a nice clean white colour) & can grate it manually (if you have the patient) and try to grate it horizontally instead vertically so u'll get finer grated flesh and more milk later on. We usually grate it vertically if we want to use the flesh for cake filling, or cook the flesh with spices and mix it with vegetable since it will more texture or rough.
To make coconut cream, pour warm water (3/4 cup) on grated coconut. press it around with your hands and press it through a sieve on top of big bowl & set aside. This one called the coconut cream or thick coconut milk.
After that put more water (1/2 cup) on the same grated coconut, knead & press again through sieve to different bowl until the water finished. Repeat the process depends on the amount needed. (usually u can get around 300 - 400 ml for each).This one called coconut milk or thin coconut milk. It's very different taste and texture from the can one and you can control on how thick and thin you want them to be.

Usually you put the thin coconut milk first when cooking and you have to keep stirring after you put coconut cream in on med heat until it's boiling and keep stirring for a few minutes after that so the coconut won't break up.

If you're not going to use the grated coconut straight away after you grate it, it can be kept in freezer for 1 week&defrost when about to use and apply the same method to get the coconut cream and milk

I have lots of ways to use the coconut cream and milk or the flesh after you obtain the milk ....
for beef, chicken , vegetable, or yellow rice, coconut rice , cake, cookies .. curry either veg, chicken or lamb (indonesian way )
I would recomend one dish call Rendang using braising beef and small potato and you can eat it with plain rice.

Let me know which recipe you want it for and spicy or mild or med ..
i'll send it to you ..

Good luck
Cat

Here are a couple of more ideas.When making a sponge cake using 3 eggs and 175 grm's of the basic ingredients plus a teasp' of baking powder add 75-80 grm's of shredded fresh coconut.Instead of a buttercream filling use mascarpone,fresh coconut with vanilla and sugar to taste. Or how about a coconut rice pudding.Add the shredded fresh coconut about half an hour before the rice pudd' has cooked.

Hi I have one festering in the fruit bowl too! Why don't you try delia's sri lankan curry with coconut sambal. Type fresh coconut in recipies and the search will bring it up.

Hey Sam. Remember, no butt, no cut, no coconut. You could try making a traditional Vietnamese coconut candy. This is how it goes: Break the coconut up and get the white meat out. slice the meat up into thin slices,try using a peeler for this task. Mix w/ 1 1/2 C of sugar, leave to soak well. Heat on medium heat,stirring constantly until all of the liq. has evap. leaving a fine sugary powder on the coc. slices. Can mix w/ food coloring to get a diff. color than white. Good luck.