With the use of coconut milk increasing in its popularity in cooking day by day, it is commercially available in tins, cans and sachets.
However, to make coconut milk at home, the following simple procedure may be used, with 1 coconut:
- Scrape coconut meat, leaving behind the brown skin, if a white milk is required.
- Soak grated coconut in 2 cups warm water for 30 minutes.
- Grind soaked coconut and water to a fine paste in a mixie.
- Strain through a sieve, collecting the thick liquid in a container below.
- This is the 'first milk' and thickest in consistency.
- It is used in making sweet dishes like payasams, prathamams, rich vegetable gravies, appams,etc.
- Add 2 cups more warm water to the residue of ground coconut.
- Grind again to a fine paste. Sieve again.
- The liquid collected this time is called the 'second milk' which is thinner than the first, but still very white.
- This is used in making dishes like coconut rice, rice coconut rotis, curds for coconut dahi wada, coconut flavoured puddings and porridges, etc.
- The normally discarded residue, can be repeated with the above process a third time to extract a thin translucent milk, which can be used to make fruity punches, drinks, and chillers.
Coconut Dishes Index
