Coconut milk, coconut water and fresh coconut: how to choose a coconut and open it

A fresh coconut is the fruit of the coconut palm: a hard brown shell, white flesh inside and some liquid in the middle. That liquid is coconut water. Coconut milk is something else: it is made by squeezing grated coconut flesh with water, and you use it like cream in curries, soups and desserts. In a Polish shop, look for "kokos świeży" (fresh coconut) and "mleko kokosowe" (coconut milk).

Water, milk, cream and desiccated coconut: the differences

One fruit gives several products, and the names are easy to mix up. Here they are with the Polish names you will see on packs:

• Coconut water ("woda kokosowa") is the clear, slightly sweet liquid inside the nut. Young green coconuts hold the most. Drink it chilled, straight from the fruit or from a carton or can.
• Coconut milk ("mleko kokosowe") is a thick white liquid made from grated flesh. The flesh is soaked in hot water, left to stand and squeezed through a cloth. Tinned coconut milk usually has more fat than homemade.
• Coconut cream ("śmietanka kokosowa") is the thicker part of the milk. In a tin that has stood somewhere cool, it collects at the top.
• Desiccated coconut ("wiórki kokosowe") is dried, grated flesh, used in cakes, sweets and coatings.
• Coconut oil ("olej kokosowy") is pressed from the flesh. In South India, especially Kerala, many dishes are fried in it.

How to choose a fresh coconut

The brown coconut you see in the shop is a mature fruit with firm flesh. Check three things:

1. Weight. A good coconut feels heavy for its size.
2. Sound. Shake it next to your ear. You should hear water sloshing. A silent coconut may have dried out inside.
3. The "eyes". One end has three dark spots. They must be dry and hard, with no mould or damp. Wet eyes or a sour smell mean the fruit is going off.

An unopened coconut keeps for a few days at room temperature. Keep the removed flesh in a closed container in the fridge and use it within a couple of days. You can also grate and freeze it.

How to open a coconut at home

You do not need a machete. A screwdriver or thick skewer, a hammer or heavy knife, and a bowl are enough.

1. Find the softest of the three eyes and pierce it with the screwdriver.
2. Turn the coconut over a glass and pour out the water. Taste it: it should be sweetish and fresh.
3. Hold the coconut in your hand over a bowl or a cloth. Tap around its "equator" with the back (blunt side) of a heavy knife or a hammer, turning it a little each time.
4. After a few turns, the shell cracks into two halves.
5. Lever the flesh out with a spoon or a blunt knife. If it holds tight, put the halves in an oven heated to 180°C for 10 minutes. The flesh shrinks a little and comes away more easily.
6. You can leave the thin brown skin on the flesh or take it off with a peeler.

How to make coconut milk from a fresh coconut

Homemade milk is thinner than tinned, but it tastes fresh.

Ingredients: the flesh of 1 coconut, about 2 glasses of hot (not boiling) water.

1. Grate the flesh finely, or blend it with half the water.
2. Pour over the rest of the water and leave for 10–15 minutes.
3. Tip into a cloth or muslin and squeeze hard. This is the first, thick milk.
4. You can soak the grated flesh in water a second time. The second milk is thinner and good for cooking rice or soup.

Keep homemade milk in the fridge and use it within 1–2 days. Pour opened tinned milk into a glass or plastic container and keep that in the fridge too.

What to cook with coconut milk

• Curry. In South Indian, Sri Lankan and Thai cooking, coconut milk is the base of many sauces, for example Kerala fish curry or Thai green curry.
• Soup. Add it to lentil or pumpkin soup towards the end of cooking.
• Rice. Jasmine rice cooked half in coconut milk has a mild, sweetish taste.
• Desserts. Kheer, tapioca pudding, ice cream, smoothies.

When you make a sauce with coconut milk, do not boil it hard for long, or the milk can split. Add it towards the end and heat it gently.

Where to buy coconut and coconut milk

Fresh coconut is on the fresh coconut page. Tinned and boxed coconut milk is in the Aroy-D range, for example Aroy-D coconut milk 400 ml. Coconut water is in the coconut water category. If you do not want to grate the flesh yourself, try frozen grated coconut. Little India has shops in Warsaw, Kraków, Wrocław and Gdańsk and ships online orders.