Today I am going to bring y’all way down south. Little bit past where all my southern cooking originated and to the “Tropical South”. For those of you new to my page I will explain. I recently moved to South Florida. Ft. Lauderdale to be more precise. I have to admit that it is a very big cultural change. The part I have enjoyed the most so far are the farmers markets that are rich with tropical fruits and vegetables. Then there’s the exotic spices and flavors brought to the area by the Cuban population along with all other islands in the region such as Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, the Bahamas and of course Puerto Rico to name a few.
I have been fascinated by the amount of coconut trees here as well. I am not kidding when I say you can not drive anywhere in the area without seeing them lining the streets and beaches. The picture above is one I took on a visit down to South Beach in Miami. I could sit all day under these trees and listen to the ocean breeze blowing through their frowns.
Now most of you, including me till just recently, probably think that those husky brown coconuts you find in the stores are how they grow on trees. Well we are all wrong. The below picture is of a cluster of coconuts on one of my neighbors many coconut trees. Big green fresh coconuts that are the size of bowling balls. And yes, when the fall from the tree they can break a windshield on a car or give a person a concussion.
Now as I mentioned earlier, I am now going to the farmers markets down here as I had up in Tampa before I moved. Every weekend I have tried to find new ones and get my fill of the local “flavor”. At each and every one that I have been too I have found piles and piles of coconuts.
Until today I just looked at them and was amazed by their size as to the little brown orbs I have been accustomed to seeing. Today my friends I had to buy a couple and see what all these people were fussing about in front of me. There was a gentleman wielding a machete who would in one stroke slice the top off the coconut and hand it to the customer with a straw stuck into the center. Everyone was oohing and ahhing over the fresh coconut water. (coconut water is not the same as coconut milk. Coconut water comes straight from the coconut, whereas coconut milk is the liquid that comes from the grated meat of a coconut.) Well for me, I wanted to try it myself but I wasn’t going to pay him to cut it open for me. No, I was going to buy a couple (only $2.00 a piece) and take them home and get to the root (or should I say “nut”) of this bad boy. By the way. This is when I found out the coconuts inside this big husked mammoth was not brown, but white…..more on that in a bit.
So here are my two beauties I bought. By the way, those blocks on the right are 1 foot square. So you can see the size of these things.
Hmmmm…… I don’t have one of those big ole machete’s that guy had at the farmers market. So I chose my largest chefs knife. Sharpened up real nice and good on the sharpening steel and went to work. Well actually that’s not true. After sharpening the knife I turned to my trusty lap top and searched on how to open these things. That’s when I found out that I was going to be “husking” these coconuts. Now I have husked more bushels of corn in my life (childhood….thanks mom) than I want to remember. I had never dreamed that I’d be “husking” coconuts in sort of the same way. I leaned where the “nut” is. Basically it is at the bottom of the orb if you hold it stem side up. I found out to chop into the coconut from the upper area all around the coconut to make strips you can “peal”. Yea right, more like yank and pull, and tug and grunt.
So I proceeded to do this over and over again. After about 5 minutes I saw a global area forming. Hey that’s not brown. It’s white.
Did I get a bad coconut? Hmmm….off to the computer to Google again. Nope that is a what a fresh coconut looks like. So here is a green coconut and it’s interior white nut freshly removed. Notice the little hole in the top. I got all fancy like the guy at the flea market and in one swipe I took off the top. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Yupp, still have all my fingers. I took 6 tries before I sliced off the top. But I did it.
So that is how you “HUSK” a fresh coconut. Below is a video of all the ‘coconut water’ that I got from this one coconut. A full 8 ounce glass.
The flavor is just a bit sweet and does not taste at all like what you would think. Not real strong or flavorful but it is Low in calories, naturally fat- and cholesterol free, more potassium than four bananas, and super hydrating – these are just a few of the many benefits ascribed to America’s latest health craze: coconut water. (yes, I got that from the internet. WebMD in fact)
So if you have the chance to get your hands on a fresh green coconut give this a try. You will be rewarded with a nutritious, delicious natural thirst quencher.
Be the first to comment