Young Coconut and Pork Soup

I hardly use coconut (other than coconut milk, which I adore) in my cooking. I don't know why, but I am just not a big fan of shredded coconut meat...it tickles my throat, and not in a good way ;)...but I wanted to do something new (by not using coconut milk), and I've decided to go for the young coconut and meat soup. I sounded great in my head, let's see how it turns out.

But, there's a tiny little detail I failed to consider, I just realised that I haven't tried cracking a whole coconut open before in my life! I saw a Thai chef doing it, seemingly effortless, fluently, easily, seamlessly, on TV and I remember that I saw my nanny did it many times back home in Indonesia. So, thinking that "if others can do it, so can I", I gathered enough courage to grab a whole young coconut from a supermarket near my place....glances of disbelief were shot at me while I loaded the coconut into my basket (not many people buy whole coconut, especially my people my age - yeah baby, in supermarkets and wet markets, I AM considered young!!!) and I shot them a super smug glance conveying this message: "Uh-huh! I am so doing it, I am going to crack this bad boy effortlessly, just like what they do on TV"

Apparently, surprise, surprise! Seeing stuff being done easily on TV is not equal to a sufficient training. Welcome to coconut cracking hell. On TV, I saw the chef cracking the coconut shell open by whacking it using the back of her cleaver. So I took my shiny and new cleaver (it's a gift and I hardly use it haha!), and started whacking my coconut with all my might.

Well well...after a whole lot of whacking, the coconut remained unscatched...staring back at me with mocking eyes, as if to say "Easy, eh? You've sooo underestimated me, baby!". Pieces of coconut husk were splattered everywhere, and there were only a few dents on the shell. I whacked and whacked and whacked...and finally I got a bit of an opening. The whacking continued and I've sent more coconut husk pieces in than getting anything out, I started to worry that I might not have anything to submit for Wandering Chopstick's Weekend Wokking - Coconut event. Finally, after I pretty much whacked my azz off, I had enough opening to pour the coconut juice out and spooned a bit of the silky smooth coconut meat.


Young Coconut and Pork Soup
Recipe
- 0.5 lb lean pork (Cut into chunky pieces. You can replace with chicken)
- juice (coconut juice/water (not coconut milk) and meat of 1 coconut)
- white pepper, salt
- hot water

Bring coconut juice and meat to boil, add pork chunks, add hot water, cook until the meat is tender. Season with white pepper and salt, serve hot.

This soup is clear yet super fragrant and sweet, the meat is richly flavored by the sweetness of the coconut juice. Sharing this recipe with the folks at Weekend Wokking, created by my blogger pal Wandering Chopsticks, hosted this week by Precious Pea.

I think I got a bit of bicep (although buried beneath a million layers of fat) from whacking that coconut. Yay!