Samaira Banga and the Satvik Chef show how to crack a coconut cleanly by hammering the center while rotating it, then loosening the flesh from the shell with more gentle strikes before sliding the meat out with a knife.
Ever struggled to break a coconut? I always did, with pieces flying across the room and sometimes even causing cuts and scratches. But then I learnt the easiest way to open one. I'll let our Satvik Chef show you how.
Alright, let's begin. This is how cleanly our coconut is going to come out. Start with making a cut on the hair of the coconut from where you can pull and rip it off. Once all the hair is taken out, your coconut shell looks like this. Now hammer the coconut on the centre, and while you do this, keep turning the coconut round and round. You'll have a crack in the middle, and now is a good time to split it into 2 pieces. Continue hammering each piece from all angles possible. Just go with the flow with your hammer with enough force. Practice will make it perfect. Basically, you're trying to loosen the coconut flesh from the grip of the shell from all sides. Now with a knife, just gently push out the fruit and it should come out smooth and sweetly like a whistle. Repeat the same process on the other half and even the second half of your coconut will pop out cleanly like this. It's quite fulfilling to even just look at the coconut scooped out so clean and perfectly rounded.
