Helpful tips: how to cut a coconut

Helpful tips: how to cut a coconut
Helpful tips: how to cut a coconut
Anonim

Not everyone knows that a coconut is not a nut at all, but a stone fruit, a drupe. Its homeland is believed to be New Guinea. The name comes from the Portuguese word "coco" - "monkey", it was with this animal that the sailors who took part in the expedition of the navigator Vasco da Gama compared the hairy nuts. Today, it can be argued that coconut waters and feeds half of the world's population.

The pulp of coconut, and coconut milk, and juice are used as food. Our compatriots can taste exotic milk only by traveling to those countries where coconut trees grow, because it is found only inside unripe green fruits. As the coconut matures, the milk turns into pulp, and the juice is already contained inside the ripe brown "nut". But in order to get to it, you need to know how to cut a coconut.

how to split a coconut
how to split a coconut

First you need to consider the fruit: on the one hand there are three dark spots. These places, thanks to which the coconut was attached to the palm, are the thinnest on the shell. Two of the three "eyes" need to be picked. This can be done with the tip of a knife, corkscrew or other similar object. Now you caninsert a straw into one hole and drink the liquid, or you can pour it into a mug to then add to a milkshake or fruit shake.

Some people, when answering the question of how to cut a coconut, advise breaking it like a walnut and using a hammer, and put the fruit itself so that it does not shatter into pieces, put it in a plastic bag. But we have already said that a coconut is not a nut, so you can beat it with a hammer for a long time and to no avail. A large kitchen knife will help open the coconut.

We take a heavy knife in the right hand and with a swing we hit it with a blunt side on the coconut, slightly shifted from the center to the side. To prevent the coconut from slipping away from the blow, you need to hold it with your left hand. You may need to make a few blows, turning the fruit, but a crack will certainly appear on the hairy "nut", and the question of how to cut the coconut will be resolved. It remains to divide the fruit into two parts and remove the pulp from it.

coconut pulp
coconut pulp

Coconut pulp is easy to separate, you can use a knife with a rounded end for this, or you can just get by with a spoon - a tea, dessert or table spoon. There will be a thin brown film on the part that was adjacent to the shell, this must be removed with a sharp knife or vegetable peeler.

open coconut
open coconut

Now that you know how to carve a coconut, it remains to decide what to do with the coconut flesh. There are several options. The first and simplest is that you can eat it right away, just like that or dipping it in honey or condensed milk. And you can cookcoconut flakes, which is a component of many culinary dishes. Depending on what you will be cooking, the coconut pulp should be grated on a fine or coarse grater, or chopped in a blender. The finished chips can be dried or frozen. A chopped coconut can be stored in the refrigerator for no more than a day, but in the freezer, shavings wrapped in a plastic bag can be stored for several months.

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