A Freshly-Cracked Coconut
Even if it’s a frigid mid-winter day and you’re hunkered down inside watching a blizzard blow by outside, opening a coconut will make you feel downright tropical. Once it’s open, you can drain the water and then notch out chunks of fresh, sweet flesh to eat out of hand. (They’re particularly good frozen.) You can also cut those chunks into matchsticks and then use them in Asian stir-frys and soups, or mince them and sprinkle them over a dessert made with tropical fruits or ice cream. Die-hard coconut fans will appreciate brownies or cupcakes made with strips of the just-cracked meat.
But getting a coconut open isn’t the easiest task in the world, although it’s a bit easier to crack a pre-scored coconut than one that has just fallen off the palm tree and thunked onto the sandy beach.
Choosing Your Coconut
Before you even purchase your coconut, however, make sure it sloshes easily when you shake it, and double-check the hairy surface for any signs of slime or mold. (Struggling to open a coconut and then having putrid water gush out when you finally do crack the sucker is quite a depressing experience!)
Cracking Your Coconut
Once you’re home and have access to your toolbox, rotate the coconut until you find the three softer spots at the end. These are called the “eyes” and are a bit reminiscent of the finger hole pattern found on bowling balls. Carefully pound a thick nail (or other pointy, long object) into each eye to make a hole, then upend the coconut over a clean bowl to let the water drain out. (Rice simmered in coconut water is a nice treat; so are smoothies made with it.)
Once the coconut is empty, place it on a towel, arm yourself with a chisel and hammer, find the score-line — or notch in one to make things easier for yourself — and go to work. Remember that coconuts are fairly hard, but not rock-hard! On the plus side, since you’ve already drained it, at least it won’t make a tremendous mess if you have a heavy hammer hand and wind up splitting the coconut with more force than you’d intended. Do not, however, try doing this with a simple kitchen knife! Even butcher knives were not made to pierce a sturdy coconut husk. (I recently told a friend that he might have to use his treasured Roto-Zip tool to open the coconut. He thought I was kidding … until he started chiseling away. Then he decided that coconut-cracking –which is simply inconceivable without an array of tools and a certain amount of violence — was the vegetarian version of hunting.)
Once you’ve cracked the coconut, though, you can do any or all of the things I mentioned earlier.
Enjoy!
Print This Post
Tags: coconut, coconut water, cracking a coconut, fruit dessert, stir-fry
