Adventures in Thai Cooking & Travel
Coconut Milk/Cream
Coconut Milk/Cream (Gkati)
by Kasma Loha-unchit
Text Copyright © 1995 & 2000 Kasma Loha-unchit.
Also Available: Links to Information on this site about the coconut. | includes: Coconuts | How To Crack a Coconut | Making Coconut Milk | Coconut Oil – A Good Oil
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See below for Recipes with Coconut Milk.
Coconut
milk/cream (gkati): 
Coconut milk is not the juice found
inside a coconut, but the diluted cream pressed out from the thick, white flesh of a well-matured
coconut.
To make coconut milk, finely grated coconut meat is steeped in hot water until it is cool enough to handle. It is then squeezed until dry; the white fluid is strained to remove all the pulp. When allowed to sit for a while, the coconut cream (hua gkati) rises to the top. Commercially, coconut cream is obtained by pressing grated coconut flesh by itself without water, using a specialized, heavy piece of machinery.
More hot water is added to the pulp and the process is repeated to yield a lighter fluid, or coconut milk (nahm gkati). Frequently, a third pressing is done to obtain a light coconut milk (hahng gkati), which is used for stewing meats or for thinning coconut milk to make a coconut soup or a light curry. An average mature coconut yields about one cup of coconut cream and one to two cups of coconut milk depending on how light a milk is desired.
For most working American families with limited time to cook, making fresh coconut milk from scratch from a whole coconut is too laborious a process, especially when it can be easily substituted with canned or bottled unsweetened coconut milk.
Not all brands of canned coconut milk are good. Some actually can be downright foul-tasting. So try a number of different brands to find the one most to your liking. Good coconut milk has a clean, white color and tastes rich, creamy and mildly sweet with the essence of coconut. It should also have a complexity and depth of flavor that keeps you intrigued and not leave an unpleasant aftertaste. As is true with other kinds of natural cream that has not been artificially homogenized, natural coconut cream will rise to the top and separate from the heavier water component.
Good brands of coconut milk, therefore, will have thick cream floating on top of
the can while the milk on the bottom will be much more watery. The cream usually coagulates in
cool weather, or when refrigerated. Brands with milk that looks homogenized tend to have an
artificial taste because of additives introduced to make the cream homogenize, or excess
processing which changes the nature of the cream. My two preferred brands are Chao Koh in 14
oz. cans and Mae Ploy in 19 oz. cans. The latter is the richest and creamiest of brands I have
tried; Chao Koh, while lighter, has a delicate, sweet natural flavor. Beware of look-alike cans
of inferior brands. Both are carried by most Southeast Asian markets.
For recipes requiring coconut cream, do not shake the can before opening; spoon out the thick cream on top. On hot days, refrigerate the can so that the cream will harden and can be easily separated from the lighter milk.
I do not recommend canned "light coconut milk" – it has little flavor, if any at all. Usually, some kind of flour has been added to make it look thicker and whiter than it really is, although this is not made known in the listing of ingredients. Better results can be obtained by thinning a good-quality, creamy coconut milk with water or cooking liquids to the lightness desired. If you are concerned about the saturated fat content in coconut milk, know that this saturated fat has been shown in many independent studies to be a good saturated fat, easily metabolized to give your body quick energy. Contrary to popular myth, it does not transform into bad cholesterol to clog up arteries. In fact, cultures around the world that depend on coconut as their main source of fat have been found to be free of heart disease. The principle fatty acid in coconut milk is lauric acid, which is the same fat found in abundance in mother's milk and is known to promote normal brain development and contribute to healthy bones. It also has important anti-carcinogenic and anti-pathogenic properties and is less likely to cause weight gain than polyunsaturated oils.
The potent anti-viral, anti-fungal and anti-microbial effects of coconut oil have implicated it in the treatment of both AIDS and candida. Whatever bad things you may have heard or read about coconut milk have not stood up to scrutiny by unbiased food scientists; however, the goodness of coconut milk has not been given equal press because of intensive lobbying against it by the powerful vegetable oil industry. Southeast Asians, meanwhile, have been staying healthy for generations with coconut an integral part of their diet.
Coconut milk should be refrigerated once the can is opened. It keeps for a couple of days to a week I do not recommend freezing coconut milk as this increases the likelihood of curdling when it is next used in cooking – unless you are just warming it through without boiling. Be careful not to buy sweetened coconut milk for Thai cooking. As for powdered coconut milk or the waxy, condensed blocks requiring dilution with water, I do not recommend them, unless you are going backpacking and just can't do without your Thai curry!
Coconut milk is the base of most Thai curries. Contrary to western ideas of working with cream, to make the curry sauce, coconut cream is first reduced over fairly high heat to break down the cream and allow the oil to separate. The curry paste is then added and fried in the coconut oil until all the herb and spice flavors are released and blended before the rest of the coconut milk is added to make the sauce. Finished Thai curries will have a thin layer of oil floating on top of the sauce. This oil picks up the color of the curries – bright red for red curry, glistening green for green curry, and so on – giving them a lovely appearance rather than a dull, whitish sameness. The color serves as a reminder of their true nature – spicy hot from red and green chillies and not creamy and bland.
Text Copyright © 2000 Kasma Loha-unchit in Dancing Shrimp: Favorite Thai Recipes for Seafood. See pages 55 & 56.
This is just one of many listings in the "Alphabetical List of Ingredients" in chapter four (pages 49 to 73) of Dancing Shrimp: Favorite Thai Recipes for Seafood.
Coconut Milk/Cream (Gkati)
Nothing compares with the flavor of fresh-pressed coconut
milk. Though there are several brands of rather good canned coconut milk now available on the
market, freshly pressed milk will have a fragrant, naturally sweet and delightfully nutty
flavor lacking in the canned products. But finding a fully developed and reasonably fresh
coconut in American markets is sometimes not as easy as it may seem. Many of those you see in
supermarkets or Asian stores near your home are not quite old enough; they have been grown for
the meat itself and harvested at a slightly earlier stage of maturity. Frequently, these
coconuts are not very fresh, unless the store receives regular shipments each week.
Unlike nuts such as almonds and walnuts, coconuts are more delicate than most people realize and do not have a long shelf life, especially after the outer husks have been removed. The fibrous husks are nature's protective cushion and are integral parts of coconuts, but because of their bulkiness, they usually have been pulled off and discarded. If stores do carry coconuts with husks still on, they may have trouble selling them. The dried, brown husks of matured coconuts aren't particularly attractive, and how would consumers here figure out how to get inside of one? It seems difficult enough to deal with the hard shell.
Without the outer husks, the shells bang against each other in transport and often crack or develop leaks. The eyes on one end are also exposed and subject to puncture and air seepage or mold growing inward. Air and mold entering the coconut will make the rich meat spoil quickly. That's why when purchasing a coconut at the store, be careful to choose one that is still heavy with juice. Shake it and if it seems dry, chances are there is a crack or leak in the shell; or it may have sat on the shelf too long, the juice having all but evaporated through the eyes. Check the eyes, they shouldn't look dark or moldy. Though often sealed with wax to prevent leakage, this does not guarantee that leakage has not occurred.
When looking for a coconut to buy, search first for a batch whose overall appearance suggests freshness. If there are several that are moldy and cracked, try another store. From a fresh-looking batch, choose the best-looking one, and if you wish to be doubly sure, take home an extra as back-up. If the market carries more than one kind of coconuts, select from those with rich brown shells if you wish to press fresh milk. Inside, the thick flesh should be a pure white color; if it has started to yellow, it most probably is rancid. Besides the thickness of the flesh, you can usually tell whether a coconut is old enough to yield creamy milk by looking at a cross-section of the shell. A well-matured one would have developed a very hard, chocolate-brown inner shell; this is the shell that can be carved to make implements and decorative items.
Coconuts with lighter brown shells generally are not as fully matured; the meat is delicious as a snack in itself, or shredded to make fillings and toppings for snack foods, appetizers and desserts. Milk pressed from these coconuts may be less creamy than good brands of canned coconut milk but its flavor can be fresher and tastier if you happened to have chosen coconuts from a shipment just off the boat from Asia. And although this milk is not quite creamy enough for curries and certain kinds of desserts, it adds a fragrant nuttiness to coconut soups that makes them heavenly!
Text Copyright © 1995 Kasma Loha-unchit in It Rains Fishes: Legends, Traditions and the Joys of Thai Cooking. See pages 109 & 110.
Recipes with Coconut Milk:
Appetizers
Tasty Leaf-wrapped Tidbits (Miang Kam)
Soups
Coconut Seafood Soup with Galanga (Dtom Kah Talay)
Curries
Roast Duck and "Pumpkin" Curry (Gkaeng Ped Bped)
Easy Green Curry with Pork (Gkaeng Kiow Wahn Moo)
Green Curry with Fish/Shrimp Dumplings (Gkaeng Kiow Wahn Loogchin Bplah/Gkoong)
Chicken and Roasted Eggplant in Red Curry Sauce (Gkaeng Ped Gkai)
Desserts
Black Sticky Rice Pudding (Kao Niow Dahm)
Coconut Egg Custard (Sangkaya)
Coconut-Flavored Sticky Rice with Mangoes (Kao Niow Ma-muang)
Grilled Coconut Cakes (Kanom Paeng Jee)
Sweet and Savory Grilled Coconut-Rice Hotcakes (Kanom Krok)
Also Available: Links to Information on this site about the coconut. | How To Crack a Coconut | Making Coconut Milk | Coconut Oil – A Good Oil
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About this site
Text Copyright © Kasma Loha-unchit, 1995 in It Rains Fishes, and 2000 in Dancing Shrimp. All rights reserved.
Photograph of Coconut Milk Cans used with permission of Temple of Thai Online Market. All rights reserved.
Drawings Copyright © 1995 Margaret DeJong. All rights reserved.
All material on this website is Copyright © 1995 to 2008 Kasma Loha-unchit. All rights reserved.
For comments, feedback or questions, contact Kasma.
Last updated 29 May 2005.