Recipe

Home Made Coconut Milk

Dairy Free . Gluten Free . Refined Sugar Free . Vegan

Coconuts are one of nature’s favourite superfoods! Aside from being a fantastic source of fibre, vitamins C, E, B1, B3, B5 and minerals like magnesium, sodium, iron, selenium, calcium and phosphorus coconut milk makes the tastiest alternative to dairy milk.

Growing up in Fiji it was Henry's job as the eldest of 7 children to collect coconuts, scrape and squeeze the meat to create fresh coconut milk for his family meals. Each coconut was skilfully cracked with a machete into perfect bowls. Henry would then sit down with the coconut scraper (a pronged object that looked like it came from the dark ages) and diligently work away, emptying each coconut of it's contents by hand. Fluffy pillows of juicy white meat would form in the bowl below Henry as it fell from the scraped coconuts, to this he would add warmed water give it a good mix and then squeeze it all through pieces of cheesecloth to produce the pure white milky liquid.
Thankfully for Henry today we have the thermomix so it's a whole lot simpler and quicker to create your own fresh home made coconut milk in just minutes. Although if you ask Henry to make Coconut milk today he will still dig out the old scraper and go to work! Don't forget when storing your milk in the fridge that because fresh coconut milk contains no additives or preservatives it may form a solid layer of oils on the top, just leave it out of the fridge to melt or mix it back up in the blender. We hope you enjoy this old COYO family recipe for coconut milk as much as we do.

INGREDIENTS

2 - 4 mature coconuts
3 Cups of water

DIRECTIONS

1. The fun part! Cracking the coconuts. To crack the coconuts take a heavy bladed knife like a cleaver or a machete. Hold the coconut in one hand over a large bowl with the grain lines of the coconut vertically down your hand. In the other hand pick up your knife and turn it so that you will hit the coconut with the back of the blade (not the sharp side). The action is then really simple, whack the coconut around it’s middle, running across the grain, repeat this action a couple of times, turning and tapping and you will have perfect coconut bowls. You can keep the mature coconut water for use in other recipes or just discard.

2. To get the coconut flesh out you can either use a coconut scraper or you can just take your knife or hammer again and give the back of the coconut bowl and good whack. This will loosen the meat and then you can just leaver the flesh with a butter knife. It will come away easily in big pieces.

3. Chop up the big chunks and place them into a thermomix or blender of your choice.

4. Heat the 3 cups of water over the stove. Make sure it’s not to boiling point. Take the hot water and add it to the thermomix and blend it all up till it’s well mixed.

5. Pour the mix into a nut milk bag or some cheesecloth pre-layed out over your bowl of choice and squeeze out the coconut milk. Depending on the thickness of the milk you like, you can add more coconut meat, just remember to keep blending it back in with the same water, not new water.

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