Make Fresh Coconut Milk For Your Tamil Meals

I typically use frozen grated coconut I buy from the store or that my mom packs for me. I only very recently learned to break open a coconut on my own after watching my dad do it.

Along with the frozen grated coconut, I’m highly dependent on canned coconut milk for most meals I make. This is mostly because I’m too lazy to spend the time necessary to make fresh coconut milk However, there are certain food items, like appam, that taste so much better with fresh coconut milk.

Review the steps below to learn how to break and grate a coconut, as well as make fresh coconut milk.

Take a look at a video here if a visual is useful.

Breaking a coconut open:

1. Hold the coconut with the ends laying horizontally on your palm (fingers facing up).
2. As you rotate the coconut on its horizontal axis, hit it in the center with a metal tool.
3. The coconut should start cracking around the axis, allowing you to separate the two halves.

Grating a coconut:

1. Set up your coconut grater. The link will take you to a product on Amazon that looks similar to what I used. My dad attached a grater to some wood panels to create a seat for an easier time grating coconut.
2. Place a clean plate underneath the grater to collect the grated coconut.
3. Place the half coconut on the metal part of the grater and hold it in place as you turn the knob to grate. Avoid grating the coconut husk. Once you get close to the husk, rotate the coconut to a section with more flesh.
4. Grate both coconut halves well to collect as much of the flesh as you can.

Making fresh coconut milk:

1. Put about 1/2 cup grated coconut and 1/4 cup warm water in a blender. Warm water is not necessary if you live in a tropical country. If you have coconut water left over from breaking the coconut, use this instead to make the produced coconut milk taste better.
2. Blend well.
3. Sieve the blended coconut to collect the coconut milk in a bowl
4. Put the dried blended coconut back into the blender with the produced coconut milk to blend again. Add more grated coconut if possible and blend. This is done to get a thicker milk consistency.
5. Continue this process, steps 1 to 4, until you have produced enough coconut milk or processed all of your grated coconut.