Well I am sure many of you make use of this important paste in most of your cooking frequently. Of course, if its Kerala cuisine, no doubt its extensively used. I use coconut paste in most of my kurmas and few rich gravies call for this coconut milk. Appam another of my favorite dish gets accompanied with this sugared coconut milk. Konda loves appam with coconut milk. So the Sundays that I make Appam, this is a must. I remember the way Amma used to make this specially for me. I was the only person eating it and she so painstaking used to make it. The first or the thick one gets added with sugar and the second milk, which is much thinner gets into the Tomato Kurma
Updated on 12th Mar:
Actually I scrape the outer layer before chopping to prevent the black layer getting in. If its a tender coconut, you can actually remove a thin layer and you will get a pure white. coconut for milk. But with mature ones, on scraping the brown outer part will peel off. If you check out the pieces you find it brown and while in most places! And also when its mature one and after pulsing it, the brown part stays back after running it through a sieve.
Thanks to my blogger friends for sharing their tips, I am sure its going to be very useful. Though grating it sounds a tough job as I can't grate a coconut for nuts!!.
If you are using coconut this is not so mature or thick, within few minutes in the mixie yields good amount. But if its really thick, you got to run it few times more to get the milk.
Wash and chop the coconut into smaller pieces.
First run them in the mixie for couple of rounds, then add required water and pulse it again.
Strain it over the sieve. Thick milk will fall down. Press firmly so that you get most of it out.
Pulse it again with more water to get thinner milk, which can go into any gravy that you planned.
Fresh Coconut Milk for Appam
Fresh thick Coconut Milk - 1 cup
Sugar - 2 tsp (depends on your taste)
The thick coconut is mixed with sugar and served for Appams
Madhu says
Very neat post about coconut milk.
Priya says
Quite a important ingredient for SOuth Indian cuisine...
Asha says
Great post Sri. Very useful when you get coconuts fresh and sweet.
Whenever I buy 2 coconuts here, one is always rotten inside, so I prefer to use canned Coconut milk most of time, use fresh coconut for chutney! 🙂
Asha says
Great post Sri. Very useful when you get coconuts fresh and sweet.
Whenever I buy 2 coconuts here, one is always rotten inside. So I prefer to use canned Coconut milk most of time, use fresh coconut for chutney and sometimes to grind for dishes! 🙂
Divya Vikram says
We adore and love aapams. But I havent given it a try..Thanks for the recipe Valli.
Divya Kudua says
Great pictorial Valli.One tip though.It would be better if you grate the coconut as you would only get the white part.By chopping them,somewhere there will be a brown tinge and the coconut milk wouldnt be pristine white[not that it matters though].The residue which forms after extracting the coconut milk can be made for coconut based stir-fries like thoran,aviyal etc by adding less measures of fresh coconut for the flavour.
Sharmila says
The coconuts that we get here are too dryish ... I miss the tender coconuts. And I too love appams with fresh coconut milk and sugar .. luckily we do have a great South Indian restaraunt here where I learnt to have that combi. 🙂
Making fresh coconut milk is a really tough process Srivalli!
bee says
it's a lot of work, but the canned cannot match the flavour of the fresh.
jayasree says
Good to see the Basics series back. I always prefer fresh coconut milk. I grate the coconut and extract milk.
Dhanasakthi says
Its a really useful post though I want to add a thing more! we use slightly heated warm water to grind the coconut and squeeze out the coconut milk. Thats my MIL's tip to extract more milk out of coconut.
Suparna says
hi srivalli,
very interesting post on extracting cocnut milk. Divya's tip was good. Nice step wise pics :)great !
TC
Mints! says
Nice post! I use canned coconut milk but I am sure fresh will be 100% better.
Ranjani says
Great post! Love how you've broken it down and explained it. I've never bought a coconut, just canned coconut milk or frozen grated coconut...now I'm tempted to buy the fresh stuff and give this a shot..bet it'll taste a ton fresher!
notyet100 says
thbks for the recipe.,..my sis was askin me how to prepre will send her he link,...:-)
homecooked says
Hey...I use coconut milk in appams too! but I usually take a shotcut and buy the tinned ones 🙂 The korma looks yummy too!
Chitra says
very useful post,nice step by step explanation with pics:)thanks!!
Sia says
i love this new series of indian basics. it's gonna help many ppl in understanding indian basics.
churningthewordmill.wordpress.com says
thanks for putting this up.. i have been struggling with this whole coconut milk thingy for like ages!!now i have a guide!:D
Maggie says
Wonderful post! I make homemade nut milks with almonds and cashews and I really want to start blending them twice to see what kind of second thinner milk I'll get.
Erica says
Great Post!
I love to cook with coconut milk,In Colombia we use it in seafood dishes.