Ingredient

Coconut milk

The tin and the carton share a name and are not the same thing. Tinned coconut milk is a rich cooking ingredient, high in fat, that behaves like a cream. Carton coconut drink is a thin beverage, mostly water, made for cereal and coffee. Using the second where a curry wants the first is one of the most common substitution failures there is.

What is in each container

Tinned coconut milk

Coconut flesh pressed with water. Typically 50–80% coconut extract and often 15–22% fat. A cooking ingredient. This is what a curry recipe means.

Tinned coconut cream

The same thing with less water. Thicker and richer again. Used where you want maximum body, or scooped for whipping.

Carton coconut drink

Often under 10% coconut, the rest water, with stabilisers and sometimes sugar. A beverage. It will not enrich a sauce and it splits readily.

Creamed coconut

A solid block of coconut flesh and fat. Grated or dissolved into liquid. Concentrated and very useful, and it keeps for months.

Coconut powder

Dried, reconstituted with water. Convenient, and a reasonable stand-in for the tin.

How to check a tin

Read the coconut percentage on the back. Below about 50% and you are buying water with an emulsifier in it.

The solid layer, and why you should not always shake the tin

Open a tin of good coconut milk and you often find a thick white layer on top and thin watery liquid beneath. That separation is a sign of quality rather than a fault: it means there is enough fat to rise, and that little emulsifier has been added to hold it in suspension.

Whether to shake the tin depends entirely on what you are making.

Do not shake it when a recipe wants you to crack the cream — Thai curries in particular begin by frying the thick top layer alone until the fat separates out and the paste sizzles in it. That step is where most of the flavour in the finished curry comes from, and it is impossible if you have already stirred the tin into uniformity.

Do not shake it when you want to chill and scoop the solid layer for whipping.

Shake or stir it for almost everything else — soups, dals, braises, rice, baking — where you simply want a uniform rich liquid.

Cracking coconut cream, the Thai way

The technique that separates a good home curry from a flat one.

1. Open the tin without shaking it and spoon the thick cream off the top into a wide pan. Set the thin liquid aside.
2. Heat it over a medium heat and let it bubble. After a few minutes the emulsion breaks and clear coconut oil separates out, with the solids sitting in it. It will look split, and that is exactly what you want.
3. Add your curry paste to that separated fat and fry it, stirring, for a couple of minutes until it darkens and smells cooked rather than raw. This is the whole point of the exercise.
4. Add the protein or vegetables and turn them in the paste.
5. Now add the reserved thin liquid and any stock, and simmer.
6. Do not boil it hard from here. A gentle simmer keeps the sauce together; a rolling boil will break it and leave an oily surface.

Why it splits, and when that matters

Coconut milk is an emulsion of fat in water held together by protein, and like any emulsion it can break.

• Hard boiling is the usual cause. Vigorous agitation and high heat force the fat droplets together. Simmer rather than boil.
• Acid added too early or too fast. Lime juice, tamarind and tomato all destabilise it. Add acid at the end, off a hard heat.
• Low-fat coconut milk splits far more readily, because there is less fat and usually less emulsifier holding things together.
• Carton coconut drink splits almost immediately in a hot acidic sauce. It was not built for this.
• When it does not matter. In a Thai curry the split is deliberate and the finished dish is meant to have a slick of orange oil on top. In a smooth soup it looks like a mistake.
• Rescuing a split sauce. Take it off the heat, let it cool slightly, and whisk hard, or blend it. A little cornflour slurry will hold it together if it keeps breaking.

Common questions