coconut grater

During my schooling day back in Malaysia, there was this pasar malam(night market) in the Saturday and Wednesday night near our neighbourhood. My mother would take a rest and we would scout our dinner cum supper in the night market. There was this stall that sells coconut juice and sugar cane juice. It was one of my favorite stall, coconut juice was a must buy during those days.

The local coconut juice was however not that tasty compare to the one sell in Malaysia and the price is higher here. The most expensive coconut juice I had drunk was the one in Club Med Cherating, it was RM20 per coconut….

My mom used to asked me or my brother to go to the local Indian grocery shop to buy dried coconut. The shop keeper would chopped the coconut in half and later grated it with a electric grater. The grater coconut would be juiced for santan later to cook curry. Occasionally my mom would make some onde-onde for us…

Ving would cook curry for us from time to time as there is no shop here selling any grated coconut, we had to used canned santan. The santan is more creamy and thick and I felt that there must be chemical inside and I had decided to seek for a new source of santan.

The southern part of Taiwan had a good supply of coconut thanks to the weather. I had tried to buy some dried coconut in the past but unfortunately I was unable to grate the coconut and produce santan as I don’t have the proper grater.

I do not have the luxury to keep a electric grater due to it’s size and price. So I had started to survey for the “appropriate” tools for grating.

I remembered many years ago, my dad had use a wooden grater similar to the tools below to grate some coconut for santan in my nanny coffee shop.

very simple grater 

A very primitive tools but effective as I recalled it. I had sought to the net trying to find a plan and I came up with some design.

With the help of my power tools, I had build this coconut grater.



a box-style stool c an iron grater



 The key to the tools is that sharp iron piece. During our last trip back to Malaysia for my passport, I had managed to get two of those in one Chinese hardware shop.

After our return, I had started the building project…

Looks fine but still need some improvement..

However the result is still good though the grated coconut is not as fine as the electric grated one back in Malaysia, but still, it is a good start…

the indon working in the shop had peel off the outer skin for me...

poor chopping half technique.....

The final product - whole wheat coconut bun....

Next try would be santan....