Coconut, round 2
My first battle with the coconut didn't go too well, and since I was tired of having the partly-open thing on the kitchen counter, I got serious yesterday.
The result: success! Sort of.
I may have won the war, but I lost a battle or two along the way.
With a shop full of power tools, I thought it was time to take this to the next level. The bandsaw...
...was doing a great job removing the husk...
...until it wasn't:
The teeth caught in the fibrous inner husk, and I ruined a $30 bandsaw blade. Bent all up. Grrr.
I removed enough of the hard outer coating though so that I could use pliers...
...to grasp a section, twist and roll it back until it was free.
The end result:
A bare coconut!
Or maybe a hedgehog?
Now all I need to do is figure out how to get the milk (water?) out and then crack it open without damaging any other tools.
I told my wife that we are definitely eating every part of this &$%! thing now, as it's becoming the most expensive "treat" ever.
.
The eyes and nose of your hedgehog are softer than the rest of the coconut. We drive a nail into the soft spots and then pour the milk out. Once it's drained, you can use a hammer to break it. Sorry about the band saw blade.
I shall be interested to see the inside. We drank a heck of a lot of coconut milk in Sri Lanka and the coconuts had no husks. They just used a machete to strike off the top and the coconut was soft inside. I do remember as a child getting a coconut like yours and we would use a nail and hammer to break through the eyes. Then smash the daylights out of into get to the meat. My grandmother always had half a coconut hanging up in the garden for the birds but I suspect this will not be happening at your house.
Sorry for ruining a saw blade, but you managed to entertain many of us. Can't wait for the conclusion.
Good news! I was able to straighten the saw blade, so it's no longer 10x the price of a store-bought coconut! :)
We use a cutlass(machete) in Trinidad. I've included a link with pictures to help you out the next time. http://www.simplytrinicooking.com/how-to-husk-coconut/
Erica: thanks for the link, but I'm pretty sure this will be the last one that I need to husk for quite a while. :)