Food & Drink

Coconuts: How do I know when the meat is soft?

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  • Apr 19th, 2006 10:47 am
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Deal Addict
Feb 9, 2005
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Coconuts: How do I know when the meat is soft?

I bought some coconuts from superstore yesterday, opened it and the meat inside was hard as a rock. Is there a way to tell if the meat inside is soft yet without opening it?

Thanks. :)
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Deal Fanatic
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Apr 8, 2001
5275 posts
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Coconut Scan?? :razz:

I will check goog..
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Apr 8, 2001
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The meat of the ripe coconut is firm but moist, sweet and nutritous. It is easily 'snapped' out of the shell with a knife blade or grated out with a hard coconut inner shell with some teeth cut into it. BUT, too much of that treat will give you the potty trots. Grated and twisted in a piece of cloth or handful of fiber from coconut husks you can extract a delicious fluid 'creamy milk' and the dry gratings can be roasted and brewed into a tasty coffee like drink, creamed, of course with the 'creamy milk' extract.

Dried, the meat of the coconut is 'copra', a major export from many coconut rich areas of the tropics. Oil is pressed from the dried meat and is widely used in many food items and industrial applications. Shredded coconut meat we are all familiar with in culinary uses but has gone somewhat out of favor because of cholesterol content and we don't have a good substitute. Nor can you make coconut cream pie without grated coconut.

The little round brown coconuts with three little "eyes" on one end should

have a sloshing sound when you shake them. If they don't they are very old

and won't be nearly as good. Generally you would drive an ice-pick or

screwdriver or corkscrew through the "eyes" and drain the liquid into a

glass. Then bang the coconut open with a hammer. I place them partially

wrapped in a towel and put in a close fitting box or castiron pot to break

them open. Less chance of shell and meat going flying all over the room.

The fresher the coconut (if it has milk in it) the easier it is to remove

from the shell. The milk can be used in any number of ways but I usually

just find a thimble of rum and drink it.


Me...shake them for lots of liquid...which would keep the insides moist??
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Member
Apr 24, 2005
341 posts
Vancouver, BC
Try young coconut...the meat is tender and sweet. Yum.
Deal Addict
Feb 9, 2005
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jadesm wrote:Try young coconut...the meat is tender and sweet. Yum.
thats the one where the sides are cut off to make it look like a cone right?
Deal Addict
Feb 9, 2005
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nano wrote:yup

if you go to a grocery store ask for a young coconut

[IMG]http://images.google.ca/images?q=tbn:dO ... oconut.gif[/IMG]
Thats the ones I bought, but the meat was hard as a rock. My dog loved it though. What I'd like to know is how to tell if the meat is tender yet before opening it.
Deal Fanatic
Jan 13, 2005
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shake it listen for water inside pick the one that sounds like it has the most water inside
Deal Addict
Feb 9, 2005
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Vancouver
nano wrote:shake it listen for water inside pick the one that sounds like it has the most water inside
Thanks, I'll go buy some more tomorrow. :)
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Apr 8, 2001
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Note...above comment ...RUDE ....mods have been alerted.
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Deal Fanatic
Sep 16, 2004
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Toronto
nano wrote:shake it listen for water inside pick the one that sounds like it has the most water inside
Ditto.

The chances of you still finding a great tasting coconut from the shell in Canada are remote as you have no idea how long they have been on the shelf plus when peeling off the outer skins before putting them on the shelf, some of the coconuts receive deep wounds that allow the water and meat inside to be compromised as it's exposed to bacteria and the elements.

The coconuts you are looking for will off course be the beige colored ones signifying the young ones as against the older ones that have just the brown hard shell alone in which case the meat has already hardened and these are used for cooking purposes.
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Jun 9, 2005
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superizzy wrote:deleted
i always wonder what these say.. im such a bad person :lol:
Deal Fanatic
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Apr 8, 2001
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Nuprapture wrote:i always wonder what these say.. im such a bad person :lol:
Believe me ...you don't want to know.... :razz:
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