Coconut Cream and Milk
This may not be a surprise for those who have been using fresh Coconut Cream or Milk for their cooking, but increasingly with less wet markets and more supermarkets, coconut cream or milk is something we squeeze out of a tetra pak.
But the flavour from fresh coconut fibers can never be replaced with packet ones. If they say 100% cococnut cream on the packet, I guarantee you if you squeeze fresh Coconut Cream from the fibers of the coconut, the flavour is 200%. Once you have tried the natural, you won’t want to go back to packet ones.
Furthermore fresh coconut cream turns sour if left in the open for more than an hour. If you want to keep it longer, you would have to boil it to a simmer. And that allows you to keep it up to 4 hours.
So I am quite apprehensive about coconut cream that is package to last more than a year. Surely it is not 100%. Maybe there are preservatives?
Anyway, fresh cococnut is cheap and good. A packet costs me $2.20 (SGD), which is a lot of coconut.
To get the cream, just squeeze with your bare hands without adding any water. The expressed cream is the essence of the coconut. Very good for making Thai style curries.
And if you add coconut water or juice, to the squeezed fibers, you will yield coconut milk. If you don’t have the juice of the coconut, you may add warm water to extract a very nice coconut milk. Again that can be used for curries or making Nasi Lemak. Try it today!
Bon Appetit!
Fresh Coconut
Squeezing with a sieve
Cococnut cream
Dried coconut fibers