Nuts

Coconut

Coconut is the fruit of Cocos nucifera, a palm that yields several truly different kitchen products—water, jelly or firm flesh, milk, cream, and oil—across tropical coasts from the Indo-Pacific to the wider tropics. Young drinking nuts hold clear, lightly sweet mineral water and spoonable jelly flesh; mature nuts thicken into oily white meat for grating, pressing, and drying. Lauric-rich fat defines cream and oil, while virgin oil keeps loud coconut aroma and refined oil stays milder for hotter pans. Cuisines of Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Caribbean, and the Pacific built sauces, sweets, and staples on these stages. Fresh water and grated flesh spoil quickly; dried shreds and sealed oils keep longer cool. Do not swap water-stage jelly for mature baking coconut without rewriting the recipe. Botanically a drupe; some rules still group coconut with tree nuts—label locally. Good fruit smells clean and sweet; sour water or pink spoilage means reject.

Also known as: Coconut Nectar