43 recipes that use grated coconut, with photos, step-by-step instructions and cook times. The quickest, Pol sambol, takes 10 minutes. It is most often cooked with turmeric, curry leaves and coriander.
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Small, soft pancakes made from plain flour, rice flour and semolina, sweetened with condensed milk and scented with mango, folded around a sticky filling of ripe mango, sugar and coconut. They are served cold with extra mango and a scoop of ice cream or fresh cream: a lovely make-ahead dessert for a party.
Gizzada (also called 'pinch-me-round') is a little Jamaican tart with a crisp, crimped crust and a chewy filling of grated coconut cooked with brown sugar, nutmeg and ginger. It's sold in bakeries and roadside stalls across Jamaica; the name is thought to come from the Portuguese 'queijada', brought by Portuguese Jewish settlers. Eat it with a cup of tea or as an afternoon treat. Chef's tip: cook the coconut filling until it's sticky and almost dry, with no syrup pooling in the pan. A wet filling soaks into the pastry and the crust goes soft instead of crisp.
Toto is an old-time Jamaican country cake, the kind baked in a 'dutchie' over coals in rural St Mary and St Ann and sold in squares at bakeries and school tuck shops. It's dense and moist rather than light, packed with grated coconut, darkened with brown sugar and fragrant with nutmeg, cinnamon and vanilla. Lovely with a cup of tea, still slightly warm. Chef's tip: use fresh grated coconut if you can, or soak desiccated coconut in the warm coconut milk for 15 minutes first. Dry coconut steals moisture from the batter and leaves the cake crumbly instead of chewy.
Coconut bake is a breakfast bread from Trinidad and especially Tobago, where it's baked on Sunday mornings in homes and village bakeries. It's a quick, unyeasted bread, rich with grated coconut and coconut milk and rubbed with butter, shaped into a round and baked until golden. It's split and buttered, and usually eaten with saltfish buljol; for a vegetarian breakfast, fill it with tomato choka, fried ripe plantain, sautéed bodi (long beans) or cheese. Chef's tip: rub the butter well into the flour and knead only briefly until the dough comes together. Overworking makes bake heavy and tight instead of soft and crumbly.
Avial is a mainstay of the Kerala sadya, the vegetarian feast served on a banana leaf at Onam and weddings. Batons of vegetables (raw banana, drumstick, yam, carrot, beans, ash gourd) are cooked just tender, then coated in a coarse paste of fresh coconut, cumin and green chilli, soured with curd and finished with raw coconut oil and curry leaves. It's thick rather than saucy, mild, tangy and fragrant. Serve with rice and sambar, or with adai. Chef's tip: cut every vegetable into the same 5 cm batons and add them in order of hardness, so they're all tender together and nothing turns to mush.
Appam with stew is a Kerala breakfast loved across communities, and the classic Easter and Christmas morning meal for Syrian Christian families. Appams are bowl-shaped pancakes of fermented rice and coconut batter: crisp, lacy edges around a thick, spongy, slightly sweet centre. The stew (ishtu) is pale and gentle: potatoes and vegetables simmered in thin coconut milk with whole spices, ginger and green chilli, finished with thick coconut milk and curry leaves. Chef's tip: swirl the appam pan once, firmly, the moment the batter goes in, then cover; the swirl makes the lace and the lid steams the soft centre.
Puttu and kadala is Kerala's most loved breakfast: tall cylinders of steamed rice flour layered with fresh coconut, served with a dark, earthy curry of black chickpeas (kadala) cooked in a masala of coconut roasted until deep brown. Puttu itself is plain and crumbly, so you break it up with your fingers and mash it into the curry, often with a ripe banana and pappadam on the side. The chickpeas make it filling and protein-rich. Chef's tip: the puttu flour should feel like damp sand that holds when squeezed and crumbles when poked; too wet and the puttu turns dense and gluey.
Khandvi are delicate, melt-in-the-mouth rolls from Gujarat, made by cooking gram flour with sour buttermilk until thick, spreading it paper-thin while hot and rolling it up. They're finished with a sizzling tempering of mustard seeds, sesame and curry leaves, plus fresh coconut and coriander. They're soft, tangy and gently spiced, and a favourite at Gujarati weddings and tea-time. They look tricky, but once you know when the batter is cooked, they're quick. Chef's tip: keep a plate by the stove and test the batter often; when a spoonful spread thin on the plate sets in 30 seconds and peels off in one piece, it's ready, and not a minute before.
Xacuti (sha-koo-tee) is one of Goa's most complex curries: grated coconut is roasted until deep brown with poppy seeds, dried chillies and a long list of whole spices, then ground into a thick, aromatic masala. In Goa it's usually made with chicken; vegetarian Goan families make it with mushrooms, potatoes, peas and other vegetables, and the roasted coconut gives it all the depth it needs. It's warm and fragrant rather than fiery, with a touch of tamarind and jaggery. Serve with rice, pao or chapatis. Chef's tip: roast the coconut slowly over a low heat until it's the colour of milk chocolate and smells like toasted nuts; that colour is the xacuti's flavour, and pale coconut gives you a pale, flat curry.
Lawar is the dish of Balinese ceremonies: before a temple festival or a family rite, the men of the banjar gather at dawn to chop and mix it by hand in huge quantities. Many versions include meat, but lawar kacang, made with long beans, is common at home and at Balinese warungs, and it shows off base genep, the island's master spice paste of shallot, garlic, galangal, kencur, turmeric and chilli. Mixed with toasted grated coconut, it's crunchy, fragrant, sour and hot, and is eaten with rice the day it's made. Chef's tip: mix the lawar just before serving and with your hands, squeezing gently, so the spice paste works into the beans; made too early, it goes watery and dull.
Klepon are the jajan pasar, or market cakes, of Java: sold in the morning from baskets lined with banana leaves, bright green from pandan and dusted with grated coconut. Bite one and a pocket of molten palm sugar floods your mouth, so Javanese eat them whole. Malaysians and Singaporeans know the same sweet as onde-onde, made for festive tea tables, so this page covers both. Chef's tip: seal the balls with no cracks and drop them into gently boiling water — the moment they float, give them one more minute, and the sugar inside will be fully molten.
Pol sambol sits on the table at almost every Sri Lankan meal, from breakfast hoppers and string hoppers in a Kandy home to a rice packet bought at a roadside kade. Grandmothers grind it on a stone (miris gala) so the chilli and onion bruise into the coconut, and it turns a bright brick red, hot, sour and salty all at once. Most island recipes add a spoonful of Maldive fish (dried tuna flakes); we leave it out to keep it vegetarian and add a little extra onion and lime for depth. A common mistake is using dried desiccated coconut straight from the packet, which tastes dusty; fresh or frozen grated coconut gives the proper moist texture. Chef's tip: rub the chilli, onion and salt together first with your fingers until they turn juicy, then work in the coconut so every flake turns red.
Gotu kola (Asiatic pennywort) grows wild along the paddy edges in the south and centre of Sri Lanka, and a raw sambol of its leaves is the green, slightly bitter bite that balances a rice-and-curry lunch. Families in Galle and Matara will tell you it is good for the memory, and it is often served at the start of a meal or with kola kenda, the herbal porridge. The leaves are shredded as finely as possible, then tossed with shallot, tomato, green chilli, a little fresh coconut and plenty of lime, so it's crunchy, peppery and bright. Look for pennywort bunches in Sri Lankan, Thai and Vietnamese shops. The mistake to avoid is dressing it too early: the salt and lime wilt the leaves within half an hour. Chef's tip: roll a stack of leaves into a tight cigar and slice it hair-thin with a sharp knife; the finer the shreds, the better it tastes.
Pol roti is the hearty coconut flatbread that rural Sri Lankans eat for breakfast or an evening meal, cooked on a flat iron pan (thachchi) and torn up with lunu miris, parippu or a spicy potato curry; you'll see it stacked in glass cases in kades from Anuradhapura to Matara. Wheat flour is mixed with lots of freshly grated coconut, finely chopped onion and green chilli, and the dough is patted out thick by hand, so the roti come out chewy, with toasted coconut flecks and a sweet, savoury smell. The common mistake is rolling them thin: pol roti should be a good 1 cm thick and soft inside. Chef's tip: pat each roti out on a banana leaf or oiled baking paper and flip it straight onto the pan; it's too soft and crumbly to lift any other way.
When the date palm sap starts flowing in early winter, small steaming pots appear on street corners all over Bangladesh, from Rajshahi to Dhaka's Karwan Bazar, selling bhapa pitha in the dark mornings. Damp, lightly salted rice flour is packed into a small bowl around a layer of grated coconut and khejur gur (date jaggery), wrapped in cloth and steamed over a narrow-necked pot until soft, fluffy and fragrant. Eat them warm, straight from the cloth. Chef's tip: the rice flour should feel like damp sand that just holds when squeezed; too wet and the cake turns gummy, too dry and it crumbles.
Kootu sits halfway between a dal and a vegetable dish, and in Tamil homes it is the mild, kind side on a lunch plate next to a sharp rasam or a fiery kuzhambu. Chopped vegetables such as chow-chow, snake gourd, cabbage or pumpkin are cooked with moong dal until soft, then thickened with a paste of fresh coconut, cumin and a little green chilli. It's the dish many Tamil grandmothers give children and anyone recovering from a fever. Spoon it over rice with ghee or serve it alongside sambar and poriyal. Chef's tip: grind the coconut paste with the cumin raw, not toasted; the fresh, sweet cumin flavour is what makes kootu taste like kootu.
Singodi is Almora's other famous sweet, sold in the same shops as bal mithai but looking nothing like it: a soft, pale mix of khoya and coconut packed into a cone of maalu leaf and pinned shut with a twig. The leaf leaves a faint green, woody scent in the sweet, which is the whole point, and people in Kumaon unwrap them at weddings and on trips home. Maalu leaves are almost impossible to buy elsewhere, so this version uses banana leaf or fresh betel (paan) leaves; both give a gentle leafy aroma. Chef's tip: wrap the singodi while the filling is still warm and leave them in the fridge overnight, so the scent of the leaf soaks in.
Poriyal is the everyday dry vegetable of Tamil Nadu, and beans poriyal is the one that appears on banana-leaf meals at weddings, temple annadhanam and Monday-to-Friday lunch boxes alike. The beans are chopped very small, steamed in their own moisture with a mustard and urad dal tempering, and finished with a shower of fresh coconut, so each spoonful is bright green, a little crunchy and nutty. It sits next to sambar or kuzhambu with rice, and it also makes a good filling rolled into a chapati. Chef's tip: chop the beans into tiny 5 mm pieces; they cook in minutes, stay green and soak up the tempering far better than long pieces.
Neer means water in Tulu and Kannada, and that is the whole idea: a batter as thin as milk, poured onto a hot pan where it sets into a soft, lacy crêpe full of tiny holes. In Mangaluru and Udupi homes it is made fresh for breakfast or a Sunday lunch, folded into quarters and eaten warm with coconut chutney, a vegetable sagu, or simply with grated coconut and jaggery for children. Unlike most dosas, the batter is not fermented, so you can soak rice in the morning and eat by lunchtime. The crêpes are pale white, never browned, and should be tender enough to fold without cracking. Chef's tip: stir the batter from the bottom before every single dosa; the rice settles within a minute, and a batter poured from the top runs too thin and tears.
Akki rotti is the breakfast of Bengaluru and the old Mysore country: rice flour mixed with grated vegetables, dill, coconut and green chilli, patted out thin by hand straight onto a cold pan, then cooked until speckled and crisp at the edges. Every home has its own mix; dill (sabbasige soppu) is the classic flavour, but cucumber, carrot or fenugreek all turn up. It is eaten hot off the pan with coconut chutney or a dab of ghee and spicy chutney powder, and it is naturally gluten-free. Chef's tip: work with two pans in turn, patting the next rotti onto a cooled pan while the first one cooks; patting onto a hot pan burns your fingers and gives an uneven rotti.
In the villages around Mandya, Mysuru and Hassan, the farmers' lunch is ragi mudde: steaming balls of finger millet cooked into a firm, smooth dough, eaten with a thin, spicy bassaru. Bassaru literally means 'drained water': greens and dal are cooked together, the liquid is poured off and spiced into a peppery broth (the saaru), and the solids become a dry palya on the side. You pinch off a piece of mudde, roll it in the saaru and swallow it without chewing. It is filling, very nourishing and naturally gluten-free. Chef's tip: the wooden stick (mudde kolu) matters; stirring with the handle of a wooden spoon pushes the flour into the water and gets rid of lumps far better than a whisk.
No Karnataka festival lunch on a banana leaf is complete without a spoonful of kosambari at the top left corner. This raw salad of soaked split moong dal, cucumber, carrot and fresh coconut, sharpened with lemon and finished with a mustard-seed tempering, is especially made for Ram Navami, when it is offered in temples with panaka (jaggery water), and for Ugadi and weddings. It is crunchy, cool and refreshing, and packed with protein. Chef's tip: add the salt and lemon only just before serving; salted cucumber weeps water and turns the salad soggy within half an hour.
Adai is the hearty cousin of the dosa, made in Tamil homes for a weekend breakfast or an early dinner, and in Tamil Brahmin families traditionally served with avial and a lump of jaggery and white butter. Rice and a mix of toor, chana, urad and moong dal are soaked and ground coarsely with red chillies, ginger and hing, so the batter needs no fermenting at all. The pancakes are thicker than dosa, crunchy at the edges and soft and gritty in the middle, with a deep, spicy, lentil flavour and plenty of protein. Chef's tip: grind the batter like coarse semolina, not silky; that texture is what gives adai its crisp, lacy rim.
Chitranna, 'colourful rice', is the dish Karnataka mothers make when there is leftover rice and a school tiffin box to fill: cooked rice tossed in a yellow turmeric tempering with roasted peanuts, crunchy dals, green chilli, curry leaves and plenty of lemon. It appears at temple festivals as prasada, on train journeys wrapped in banana leaf, and on every Bengaluru darshini breakfast counter. It tastes even better an hour after it's made, when the lemon has soaked in. Tamil Nadu's elumichai sadam is a close cousin. Chef's tip: spread the rice out on a plate to cool before mixing; warm, steamy rice turns sticky and breaks when you toss it.
Majjiga pulusu is the cooling yogurt curry of Andhra Pradesh, cooked in summer when the buttermilk at home turns a little sour. Unlike Gujarati kadhi, it isn't thickened with gram flour: soaked chana dal is ground with coconut, ginger, green chillies and cumin, stirred into the curd, and simmered gently with soft pieces of ash gourd (or okra, or chayote). It's mild, tangy and creamy, and eaten mixed into rice with a fried vegetable or fritter on the side, especially at Telugu wedding meals. Chef's tip: whisk the yogurt until completely smooth before it goes near the heat; lumpy yogurt splits much more easily.
Mochar ghonto is a labour of love from Bengali home kitchens: the florets of a banana flower are cleaned one by one, boiled and then cooked down with potato, grated coconut, ginger and cumin into a soft, dry, faintly sweet ghonto. It is served at weekend lunches and to guests, with rice and a little dal, and grandmothers judge a cook by it. The flavour is earthy, a little like artichoke, lifted at the end with ghee and freshly ground garam masala. Chef's tip: oil your hands before cleaning the flower, or the sticky sap stains your fingers black.
Patishapta is the star of Poush Sankranti in mid-January, when Bengali homes make pithe-puli, sweets of new rice, coconut and the season's nolen gur (date-palm jaggery). A loose batter of rice flour, semolina, plain flour and milk is swirled thin on a hot pan and rolled round a sticky filling of coconut cooked with jaggery and cardamom. The crêpe should be soft and pale, never crisp. Chef's tip: keep the heat low and grease the pan only lightly with a cut potato dipped in ghee, which spreads a film rather than a pool.
Enduri (or haladi patra pitha) is the sweet of Prathamastami in Odisha, the November festival when Odia mothers pray for their eldest child, who gets the first pitha of the day. Fermented rice-and-urad batter is spread on fresh turmeric leaves, filled with coconut, jaggery, black pepper and cardamom, folded and steamed until the leaves give the cake a green, gingery perfume. The cake is soft and slightly springy. Chef's tip: if you can't find turmeric leaves, use banana leaf with a pinch of grated fresh turmeric in the batter; the flavour is close.
Kol posola is the pale inner core of the banana plant, chopped and cooked down with mustard oil, ginger and green chilli until it is soft, juicy and faintly sweet. In Assamese villages, where banana plants grow in every yard, it is cheap everyday food, and it is also a favourite on Bihu tables and in Assamese thalis in Guwahati restaurants. It has a mild, cucumber-like flavour and is prized as a cooling, cleansing food. Chef's tip: as you chop the stem, twirl a finger or a skewer through the slices to catch and pull away the fine fibres; otherwise they stay stringy.
Narikol laru are the small, chewy coconut balls that sit next to til pitha on every Bihu plate in Assam, offered to visitors with tea and jolpan. Fresh coconut is cooked with jaggery until it binds, flavoured with cardamom and rolled warm. They are soft and moist, not dry like desiccated-coconut ladoos, and are made in big batches the night before the festival. Chef's tip: roll them while still warm with damp palms; once cold, the mixture won't hold.
Pumaloi is the everyday breakfast of the Khasi Hills: coarse powdered rice, lightly moistened, packed into a tall steamer (traditionally a bamboo or metal 'khiew') and steamed into a soft, crumbly cake. In Shillong it is sold warm at morning stalls with a cup of sweet tea, and at home it is served with tungrymbai, a vegetable stew or a chilli chutney. It is plain on purpose, like Kerala's puttu but drier and lighter. Chef's tip: the flour should feel like damp sand, holding a shape when squeezed but crumbling easily; any wetter and the cake goes gluey.
Jukut urab turns up on almost every Balinese rice plate and at temple-day feasts: blanched long beans, greens and bean sprouts tossed with freshly grated coconut that has been fried with a little bumbu of shallot, chilli, kencur and lime leaf. It is bright, crunchy and only gently hot, the fresh side dish that balances heavier ones. Many cooks add shrimp paste to the bumbu; this one leaves it out. Chef's tip: toss the vegetables and coconut only just before serving, or the coconut draws out water and the dish turns soggy.
Pisang rai is a Balinese market sweet, wrapped in banana leaf and sold alongside klepon and lak-lak in the early morning. Small ripe bananas are coated in a thick rice-flour batter and dropped into boiling water rather than oil, so they come out soft, chewy and pale, ready to be rolled in salted grated coconut and drizzled with palm-sugar syrup. Some cooks colour the batter green with pandan. Chef's tip: the bananas are done when they float and the batter turns translucent at the edges; another minute firms the coating without making it gluey.
Sweet bread is what Barbadian families bake in December, wrapped in foil and handed over at Christmas visits around the island, and it's sold year round in bakeries from Bridgetown to Speightstown. It isn't a yeast bread but a dense, moist loaf packed with freshly grated coconut, sweet with brown sugar and scented with almond essence, with raisins, mixed peel and bright red glacé cherries in every slice. The top gets brushed with sugar syrup for a sticky shine. Chef's tip: use fresh or frozen grated coconut if you can; desiccated coconut makes a drier loaf unless you soak it first in the milk for 20 minutes.
Conkies are made all over Barbados in late November for Independence Day on 30 November, when they're sold at roadside stalls and steamed in big pots at home; older Bajans remember them from Guy Fawkes Night, too. A spiced batter of grated pumpkin, sweet potato and coconut, cornmeal, sugar and raisins is folded into squares of banana leaf and steamed until it sets. Unwrapped, they're moist, dense, sweet and fragrant with nutmeg, almond and the faint green tea scent of the leaf. Chef's tip: pass the banana leaves briefly over a gas flame or dip them in hot water first; they turn glossy and supple and fold without splitting.
The Nattukottai Chettiar merchants of Karaikudi and the villages around it in southern Tamil Nadu built grand mansions on the spice trade, and their kitchens show it. Their chicken curry is built on a masala roasted and ground at home: dried red chillies, black pepper, fennel, star anise, coconut and the earthy lichen called kalpasi. It is hot, aromatic and deep brown, and in Chettinad it is eaten at Sunday lunch and festivals with rice, idiyappam or flaky parotta. Chef's tip: grind the roasted masala while it is still warm with a splash of water; the oils release and the paste comes out smooth.
Guntur district grows more red chilli than almost anywhere on earth, and Andhra home cooking wears that proudly. Kodi kura is the Sunday chicken curry of Andhra homes, from Vijayawada to the Rayalaseema villages: thick, red and properly hot, with a little ground poppy seed and coconut to round out the sauce. It is eaten with heaps of plain rice, a spoon of ghee and a bowl of rasam on the side, or with jowar rotis. Chef's tip: fry the masala until oil pools at the sides before adding any water; that is where the colour and flavour come from.
Paturi means 'wrapped in a leaf', and in Bengal the favourite fish for it is bhetki, the meaty barramundi of the Sundarbans estuaries. Fillets are coated in a sharp paste of mustard, coconut and green chilli, tied up in banana leaf and steamed or cooked on a griddle, so they come out moist and fragrant. It is a dish for celebration lunches in Kolkata and is unwrapped at the table over hot rice. Chef's tip: no banana leaves? Use baking paper inside foil; you lose a little aroma but none of the texture.
When a Balinese village gets ready for a temple festival, the men gather the night before to chop, pound and mix sate lilit, while the women prepare the offerings. 'Lilit' means to wrap: instead of threaded chunks, a soft mixture of minced fish, grated coconut and base genep spice paste is moulded around lemongrass stalks or flat bamboo sticks and grilled over coconut-husk embers. The result is tender and lightly springy inside, browned and smoky outside, with the lemongrass perfuming every bite. Eat them hot with rice, sambal matah and a wedge of lime. Chef's tip: knead the mixture firmly until it feels sticky and chill it before shaping, or it will slide off the sticks on the grill.
Makassar's other great beef soup is darker, richer and more coconutty than coto, and locals argue about which is better over late lunches at pallubasa houses near the port. The secret is kelapa sangrai: grated coconut toasted slowly to a deep brown and pounded, which gives the broth a roasted, almost nutty sweetness and a slightly gritty, full body. It's eaten with a mound of plain rice rather than rice cakes, and for the full version you ask for 'alas', a raw egg yolk dropped in the bowl that you stir into the boiling soup until it turns silky. Offal is traditional but optional; tender beef alone is delicious. Chef's tip: the coconut must reach the colour of milk chocolate, not black, because burnt coconut makes the whole pot bitter.
Ambon's fish markets sell ikan asar, tuna smoked over coconut husks, and one of the best things to do with it is kohu-kohu. Flakes of the smoky fish are tossed with crisp shredded long beans, bean sprouts, lightly toasted coconut, raw shallot, chilli and plenty of lime, making a salad that is crunchy, smoky, sour and hot all at once. It's a staple at Maluku family meals, often served next to papeda and fish soup or simply with rice. Chef's tip: mix it no more than an hour before eating; fresh coconut goes limp and sour if it sits around, and the salad loses its crunch.
Bulky green chillies are the cases for this Kelantan festive dish, cooked for weddings and Raya tables in Kota Bharu. Each one is slit, scraped out and packed with a pale filling of fish, freshly grated coconut, shallots, ginger and black pepper, then simmered gently in coconut milk until the chillies slump and the gravy turns rich and faintly smoky. The filling is soft and sweet; the skins bring gentle heat and a green, grassy bite. Serve two or three per person with rice and a sambal, or with nasi kerabu. Chef's tip: choose large, mild chillies (or long sweet peppers for a gentler version) and tie each with a strip of pandan or a toothpick so the filling stays inside.
Tiyula itum, 'black soup', is the pride of the Tausug people of Sulu in the far south of the Philippines, cooked for weddings, Eid celebrations and when guests come home. Beef (it is a halal, pork-free dish) is simmered with ginger, lemongrass and turmeric, then darkened with pamapa itum, a paste of grated coconut toasted until almost black and pounded with spices. The broth looks dramatic but tastes smoky, earthy and gently peppery, with heat from chillies. Serve it with plain rice. Chef's tip: toast the coconut slowly, stirring all the time, until it is very dark brown but not ashy; burnt-to-ash coconut tastes bitter and ruins the soup.
