My darling son and I took a trip to the Super Target the other day. While walking thorough the produce section, he got bright eyed and bushy tailed when he saw the odd looking coconut fruit.
I said, “We can get one if you want.” He was all excited and grabbed the biggest one he could find and carried it around the store. We got home and it was only then I realized that I had never opened a coconut..shouldn’t be that hard right? I looked towards Google for the answer! Google knows all! I found a video on You Tube and it looked sooooo simple. However I did wait until my husband got home in case I needed any reinforcement! I got all of necessary tools. I went with the pounding method. It wasn’t that bad to actually crack it open. It just basically just split into 2 pieces. However now comes the difficult part. Trying to get the meat out is another story. The only tool I did not have was a bendable knife such as a grapefruit knife. So I had to break up this little bastard into tiny little pieces so I would be able to cut out the meat. 30 minutes went by and it look like I was all done. But NOOOOOO, I looked over to my right and the whole other half of the coconut was laying there! Oh my God, you have to be kidding me I udder. My husband thought I cut myself on the knife(which I do often). I thought someone was playing a trick on me and put more coconut on the counter. Nope..I had only completed 1/2 of my task. I was in complete shock, I had been diligently working for a half of an hour and I was only 1/2 done. Oh this sucks. Ok…now you can quote me on this…I will NEVER buy and disassemble another freaking coconut ever again as long as I live! I will leave it to the masters at the coconut processing plants! Now it just sits in the freezer awaiting its fate!!!
Below is that sneaky other half of the coconut!
Next time get your son to do it! When I was little we used to drain them first by poking out the “eyes” (one will poke out very easily, the others are more work) and then we’d crack them in half (with a hammer/rock/ by throwing it on concrete) and hack up the flesh with sturdy butter knives. It was more about the entertainment than the coconut admittedly…
A great tip for getting the flesh out in a more grown up/effective way is to put it in the oven for a little while but I can’t remember if that was before or after cracking it! I think either way would work so long as you’d pierced it first so heat could get in.
Anonymous…Thanks for the tip..I think if I let my son do it her would be left only with nubs as fingers!
I love fresh coconut! Here’s what I do: after piercing it with a nail so that the coconut water comes out I pop it in the oven for 15-20 minutes and then wrap it with a towel. Next step is bang it hard on the floor or smash it with a hammer. It separates the meat from the shell pretty well, all I have to do is to peel the thin brown skin. That’s easily done with a potato peeler. Good luck next time!
I like the tips that everyone is giving. Saddly, I’m just to lazy to do any of them lol. So, I just buy coconut in the bag, already done lol. Funny story!
I don’t think I’ve bought one since 1990 becuase of the same issue. It’s horrible.