BN Cuisine with Uzo’s Food Labs: For the Love of Coconut

My last post on the Akara cheeseburger and Akamu smoothie generated a few comments about coconut milk. {Catch up here} One lovely reader mentioned that she had a lot of coconut milk cans to use up but wanted to know what else to do with them other than curries. That comment and the ones that followed in response got me thinking and changed the direction of what I had planned for my next post. So Mz Socially Awkward – this post is inspired by you.

Coconut milk is the liquid that comes from the grated ‘meat’ of a coconut. It can be made at home by pouring hot water or milk over the grated meat and straining. Canned coconut milk, which usually comes in 400ml cans, is made with a mix of thick and thin coconut milk with some water added. Most people typically use the whole cans in recipes.If a can is opened and there is any milk leftover, it should be refrigerated for 2-3 days at a maximum before it goes sour.

I use a lot of coconut milk in different ways outside of coconut rice and curries – which I believe are the most popular uses here in Nigeria. Here are 3 of my favorite ways to use coconut milk:

Spicy Coconut Marinade

I started using coconut milk as a basis for my wet marinades when I moved back to Nigeria a few years ago and could not find buttermilk in stores. Buttermilk is a core ingredient to making lovely Southern style fried or baked chicken. It ensures that your chicken is juicy and moist in-spite of the high temperatures used to cook it. Sure you can do the lemon juice or vinegar to milk trick to sour your milk, but I wanted to add additional flavor as well. The coconut milk does exactly the same thing as buttermilk with the addition of flavor. The coconut milk breaks down the tissues of the protein ensuring you have tender meat while keeping it moist and chuck full of the flavors you have added to it.

The key to this marinade is time. Your protein should stay in this creamy bath of yumminess for at least 3 hours. Overnight is best. If using this marinade on seafood, 30 minutes of marinade time is just fine. You can also brush this marinade on vegetables going into the oven or vegetable skewers to be grilled.

I tend to make a lot of everything to save time. This marinade is no exception. Use as much as you need based on what you would like to marinade and store leftovers in the freezer so you have some always ready to use.

To make about 1.5 cups of marinade, the core ingredients you will need are:
1 400ml can of coconut milk
1 onion
4 cloves of garlic
¼ inch raw ginger
1 yellow scotch bonnet pepper
1 stock cube
Salt to taste

How To
Put all ingredients in a blender, and blend till smooth. In a bowl, place protein of choice and cover with marinade. Be generous with the marinade as you will need to baste during the cooking process. Keep unused marinade away from any used marinade to avoid cross contamination if not cooking the same kinds of meat.

This the base of the marinade and you can use as is. You can also go a step further and add any spices that you prefer to the blender as well.

The picture above shows chicken in this spicy coconut marinade baked at gas mark 4 for 45 minutes – basted twice during the process and smothered in the pan juices which have thickened at the end of the cooking process. The chicken is served with mashed potatoes – using Irish and sweet potatoes mashed with a touch of coconut milk as well.

Corn and Coconut

There is nothing like freshly roasted or boiled corn with chunks of coconut to go with it. This is one of the most popular local street foods and I have seen this combination eaten for as long as I can remember. I even remember a version sold by street hawkers where the corn has been taken off the cob and mixed with coconut slivers and tapioca. (If anyone knows what it’s called, please share).

My spin on this is to boil the corn in coconut milk on low heat and serve with some of the thickened liquid poured over the corn.

You will need
4 corn cobs – husks and silk removed and cobs rinsed
1 400ml can of coconut milk
Salt to taste
Water

How To
Place the corn cobs in a pot and cover with coconut milk, some water and salt. Boil on low heat till corn is soft. Add more coconut milk if you need to. Serve in a bowl with some of thickened leftover coconut milk poured over the corn. Sprinkle the corn with smoked or regular paprika to add an extra dimension of flavor.

Coconut & Lime Panna Cotta

I make panna cotta a lot for dessert. It’s so very easy, sounds all fancy, looks nice and can be made the day before. And its pocket friendly too in terms of things to serve when entertaining. I started out following recipes making ‘regular’ panna cotta using cream and made things exciting with various fruit toppings. One day, I made another batch of my coconut ice (recipe on the blog) and I wondered if I could take the same flavor profiles and make panna cotta. This has become a staple in my home. If people are not coming over, I just pour all the mix in a large container with a cover and let set.

To make enough for 4 tall goblets, you will need:
1 400ml can of coconut milk
300ml cream
¾ cup of caster sugar – if you do not have caster sugar at home, measure regular granulated sugar and blitz in your blender mill for a few seconds – voila- caster sugar. If you blitz the sugar for a few more seconds, you will get confectionery/Icing sugar
½ cup hot water.
1 tablespoon of gelatin
2 limes

How To
In a large saucepan over low heat, add coconut milk, cream, sugar and zest of the 2 limes. Stir constantly until the sugar dissolves – 10-15 minutes. In a heat proof bowl, pour hot water and add gelatin. Stir well to dissolve the gelatin. Add the gelatin mixture to the coconut milk mixture and stir to combine; do this for about 2 minutes.

Pour into the goblets or serving glasses and refrigerate till set. To avoid any last minute pressure or fails, I just make this the day before and let set overnight. Things have a weird way of going wrong when you don’t need them to. Setting these overnight removes any guess work.

Sprinkle toasted coconut flakes over the panna cotta and serve.