Coconuts are scrumptious. Who doesn’t like coconuts? The fresh, versatile taste is just yum! Moreover, it’s packed with vitamins and natural sweetness, which makes it a healthier choice.
However, many of us shy away from buying a coconut simply because we don’t know the trick of how to crack open them. Hacksaw? Drill machine? Or any other specialty tools?
Actually, you don’t need any of them. What if we told you that you can crack open a coconut easily with some of the tools you already have in your kitchen? Yes, indeed that’s possible.
Although it may seem a little impossible at first to crack open a coconut, but once you get to know how easy it is, you will feel like a pro!
So, here’s our guide to how you can crack open a coconut like a pro in just a few steps and relish on it.
Before You Get Started
Perhaps, the most crucial step is selecting the coconut itself. You can’t just pick a random coconut off the aisle, hoping to crack it with ease. You need to be sure whether it’s matured enough to be broken or not.
If you are buying a coconut that comes with a label, make sure to check for dates that might be offered. Remember, freshness is essential!
Next, hold the coconut right up to your ear and shake it. Do you hear any sloshing sound of liquid? Yes? Perfect! However, if you don’t hear the sloshing sound, this means that the coconut you have selected is shriveled.
Once you have checked everything, there’s one little step before cracking it, and that is, you need to check its eyes. Yes, coconuts do have eyes. It’s those three little indentions at the end. Do you see any sign of mould? If yes, then put it back. That’s one no good. For further clarification, we will tell you what happened when we cracked one of these.
Just one tap on this coconut set off a hissing sound like as if there’s some gas release. And when we poured the water, it was all murky with some chunks in it.
However, the perfect coconut itself looks very fresh, and the clear water tastes sweet too.
Pierce
Once you figure out the coconut’s eyes, you will need a tool to pierce through its eyes. More often than not, screwdrivers do the job nicely, and we are sure you already have one at readily available at your home.
Place the sharp end of the screwdriver on the thickest part of the eye.
Hit the end of the screwdriver with a hammer until you can feel that you have made a hole in the coconut through the space in the center. You can puncture both the eyes if you think that one of them wasn’t enough. It will also help you drain the coconut water faster.
Pour the Water and Preheat
Pour the coconut water on a dish or a jug. Sample out the coconut water and taste it to see if it’s sweet. Of course, coconut water is entirely safe to drink. In fact, it’s good stuff!
Once you drain the water, the coconut will be empty. Preheat the oven at 190°C and allow it to heat thoroughly. After that, you need to put it in your oven to 200°C (400°F) for a mere 10 minutes. If you are in a hurry, what you can do is, place it on the safe microwave dish and heat it under medium to high heat for a good three minutes.
Take the coconut out of the oven and wrap it in a towel. You will see that the coconut has already started to crack. Let it cool for a couple of minutes. After that, you can hit the coconut against a hard surface several times. You will feel it breaking into pieces. Typically, a concrete surface works well in whacking a coconut.
Remove the Shell
Place a knife between the shell and the white part to separate them. Once the coconut breaks into pieces, it becomes very easy to separate the two. It’s not like you need a sharp knife to separate the two parts; a simple butter knife would do the trick.
Even after separating the coconut shell from the white part, the remains of the brown fiber might still be there. In that case, just use a vegetable peeler to get rid of the fiber from the meat. And once the coconut is all white, it’s all ready to eaten or cooked.
And in case if you don’t have access to an oven or a microwave…
Drain the water in the coconut and wrap it around a towel. Hold it hard against your tabletop and get ready to crack it with a mallet. Always remember to crack it inside the sheet by tapping it firmly with a mallet. Turn the coconut as you keep tapping until it starts cracking into the half.
However, if you don’t have a mallet, you can use a hammer, too.
After a few good taps, the coconut will surely break into pieces of 2 or 3. Use your hand to split the pieces to further break it down into smaller pieces. Check where the coconut hasn’t cracked properly and keep repeating the previous step of tapping around the exterior with the mallet.
Make sure to tap in such a way that the white part of the coconut leaves out everywhere. It’s better if the coconut split into halves and smaller piece. That actually makes it easier for you to separate the shell.
Whichever method you have used, once you separate the shell from the white part, you can enjoy the coconut in whatever way you want.
Health Benefits of Coconuts
Modern doctors have highlighted the fact that coconuts are highly nutritionally beneficial because:
- Coconuts contain natural sterile electrolytes that feed your muscles and pH.
- Coconuts have high fiber
- Coconuts offer an exceptional level of potassium, manganese and
- Coconuts are rich in lauric acid, which turn to monolaurin. Monolaurin is the element that is found in mother’s breast milk, which strengthens the baby’s immunity.
Final Words
While coconut is a cornerstone in the diet of almost one-third of the world, in some parts of the Western world, it is still considered to be an exotic fruit. Experts say that coconut is not just a fruit, with all that it comes with, it’s also a nut and a seed – a drupe. You won’t believe how useful the three layers of coconut are unless you have yourself have benefitted from them.
For many years, coconut was claimed to be the cure for fever, nausea, earache, kidney stones, sore throat, bronchitis, asthma, ulcers, toothache and lice. It’s just a short list. Coconut still remains to be the mainstay for many Thai dishes. Coconut oil is increasingly becoming used for innumerable nutritional benefits.
We hope you found this article to be useful. Let us know if there’s another way you can crack open a coconut. We’ll add it to our list.
Sources:
- Simple Ways to Open a Coconut – WikiHow
- How to Crack Open a Coconut – Genius Kitchen
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