Cooking with coconut

Appears in

Published 2019

In a land with an abundance of coconuts, cooks take great care to select one at exactly the right stage of maturity for a recipe:

— very young: fresh green skin and inside plenty of sweet, clear coconut water. There can be no more refreshing drink and, if you are lucky, just a little jellylike flesh inside to scoop out with a spoon.
— young: when a little more mature the water is used as a tenderiser for meats, as in the recipe for I.F.C. The flesh is still soft, but has more body and can be chopped to use in cakes and ice cream.
— mature: the water is still usable and the flesh soft and it can be grated with or without its rind. Use in Fish sate or Vegetable urap.
— old: with its scrubby hair and brown shell, this is what we buy in the West. The water is not much good to drink, but can be used in cooking. The firm flesh is used to make coconut milk, oil and desiccated coconut.