Try using fresh coconut milk once and I swear, you’ll never go back to cans! Not only is it fresh, sweet, and healthy, but it’s better for the planet too—less processing, less waste, less carbon footprint, right?
TO CRACK A COCONUT: Use a meat mallet or rubber mallet to hit the coconut around its midsection, turning it in your hand until it cracks apart. Pour out and save the coconut water (to use in a recipe, to drink, or to make coconut milk—see below). Use the mallet to break apart the halves—the coconut meat should easily separate from the husk.
TO MAKE COCONUT MILK: Slice the coconut meat into ⅛-inch-thick strips and place them in a blender. Pour the reserved coconut water into a measuring cup and add enough filtered cold water to reach to the 4-cup mark. Add the water mixture to the blender with 1 cup cane sugar (optional—or add less if you want it less sweet) and process for 1 minute, until the coconut milk is well blended. Pour the milk through a fine-mesh sieve into a bowl, pressing on the solids with the back of a spoon to extract as much liquid as possible. Save the milk for up to a week in the fridge—but hey, it’s not going to last that long!
TO GRATE COCONUT: Remove the coconut meat from the shell and use a vegetable peeler to remove the brown skin. Use the small holes of a box grater to grate the coconut. One coconut will yield about 1⅓ to 1½ cups of lightly packed grated coconut.