Ah, food trends! Remember the obsessions with wheat germ, oat bran, and flax? The recent “discovery” of quinoa? Butter is bad, butter is good, butter is bad, butter is “THE BEST THING FOR YOU EVER! EATITEATITEATIT AHHHHHHHGGGHHHH!!!” Yes, these health trends come and go, and I’m not about to dismiss any of the claims for or against any of the above.
One mantra has remained constant in the bi-polar argument: “All things in moderation”
Well, it seems the trendy eyes have set their sights on coconut these days (wasn’t it bad for us a short while ago?). Coconut milk, coconut water, coconut oil, coconut this-and-that. This is one fad I can willingly jump into. I love coconut! I’ve often wondered how difficult it would be to have Thai green curry on an IV drip. Oh, and recently, I had a ceviche with coconut, cilantro and lime. Blissful.
I recently bought a whole coconut. Initially under the premise of attempting to make my own coconut milk for a curry, but, well, you guys know me… I got distracted.
Instead, as I was standing at the kitchen counter with a coconut in one hand, a cleaver in the other, and a playlist of YouTube tutorials on how to open said nut in front of me, I got remembering the coconut candy of Hawaii. Most commonly seen at roadside stands, made by a Mom-and-Pop operation, alongside fresh and dried fruits, and signs advertising the ubiquitous “shave ice”. I figured I would abandon the now seemingly lack-luster project of making coconut milk, and embrace sugary, tropical goodness.
I looked at a couple different ways to go about doing it, and I ended up launching into one method (slow simmering in a sugar syrup), only to find that that just wasn’t working. I changed gears and went for the slow-roasted version, which ends up melting the sugar over the coconut as it cooks. As such my recipe reflects a combination of the two methods.
Ingredients:
A coconut
About ¾ cup water
A shiteload of sugar (turbinado or demerara), roughly 1 ½ cups
I’m not going to regale you with some sort of instructional toolkit of how to open a coconut. Go to YouTube. If you have better luck than I, consider yourself amazing. I was not amazing. Instead I ended up with about nine random chunks of coconut, and a bowl of coconut water with a small sasquatch worth of fiber floating in it.
However, once you do have the coconut opened, and the meat separated from the husk, cut the meat into small chunks about the size of large chocolate chips. You could also slice the meat into strips with a vegetable peeler.
Combine the coconut, water and 1 cup of sugar in a saucepan and bring to a gentle boil. Maintain boil for about half an hour.
Preheat oven to 250°.
When liquid in the pot has reduced somewhat (yes, “somewhat” is an exact measurement), strain the coconut from the liquid, reserving the liquid, and spread the coconut on a baking sheet.
Sprinkle with sugar, and spoon about 1-2 tablespoons of the reserved liquid over the coconut.
Here’s the fun part: Place in the oven for 8-10 hours. Did I not mention you have to decide not to have a life outside the home the day you make this?
Every 45 minutes or so, spoon on an additional few spoonfuls of the liquid, and turn the coconut pieces.
Now, I admit I did allow myself to have a life. To do so, I just turned off the oven, and left the sheet hanging out in the oven until I returned and turned it back on again.
Not entirely low-maintenance, but not entirely time consuming, really. Kind of like bread making: you just need to be there for it when it needs you.
The result? Gorgeously bronzed nubbins of coconutty happiness. Perfect for grazing on when the need for a sugar fix strikes, or even if you just need to psyche your body into thinking you’re somewhere tropical. I’m thinking I may even be able to use them in place of chocolate chips in cookies. Ah well, after the 8 hour marathon, maybe I’ll give the oven a break for a while.
