Working With Young Coconut

I'll 'fess up; the first time I bought a young coconut, I did NOT know what the heck to do with it.  I admit- I took it outside and whacked it with a hammer, which kind of worked, but I lost much of the meat and water!

So- enter good old YouTube.  One can find many 'how-to' videos and amongst them, several to lots on how to break open a coconut.

Here's my little tutorial, with pics I took along the way.

1) Use your chef's knife to cut away at the top portion of the coconut (it typically comes wrapped in plastic with it's outer portion already removed.)

2) Then, give it a good whack with your chef's knife at a 45 degree angle to crack open a 'lid'.  Then, pry it the rest of the way open.

3) Pour out the water

4) Use a rubber spatula to scrape out the flesh

5) Make sure you get all that precious coconut meat!  Then, discard the empty coconut into your compost.  

More to come on some of the many options to make the water and the meat into coconut milk, cream and yogurt- all of which are completely Paleo… and incredibly decadent!