Leche de Coco. Make your own Coconut Milk

Many of the recipes I have found in Brazil use the magical ingredient of coconut milk.

Tins of this lovely stuff can be found in most supermarkets and are convenient to use and generally of acceptable quality. However, they do not achieve the same quality of flavor as the real thing.

So for those of you who got lucky on the  coconut shy  at the local village fete, here are the instructions for preparing your own coconut milk at home.

How to Preparing Coconut Milk from Fresh Coconuts.

  1. With a skewer or large nail pierce the eyes (the three little circles at the base) of a fresh coconut, and drain the liquid inside. (If you have a dicky tummy, drink the coconut water)
  2. Take your hammer from the tool shed and crack the coconut so that the shell breaks into several pieces.
  3. Using a knife and a strong spoon remove all the coconut meat from the shell, peel off the brown skin and cut the meat into small pieces.
  4. Place the meat in a blender, and blend until finely grated and place in a large mixing bowl.
  5. Add one cup of lukewarm water to the meat and start squeezing through your fingers to extract the milk. Keep going until the liquid is nice and thick.
  6. Place a sieve covered with cheese cloth over a bowl and pour the coconut meat and water into the sieve squeezing handfuls of the coconut meat to extract as much liquid as possible into the bowl.
  7. This first batch of milk will be the creamiest but you can repeat the squeezing process again with the same meat and still get some more tasty milk.
  8. Refrigerate the coconut milk in the bowl and use within a couple of days.




This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008 at 10:18 and is filed under Brazilian Recipes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed or trackback from your own site. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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