Kelapa is Indonesian and Malaysian for "Coconut". When young, coconut meat is soft and can be eaten as is together with the juice inside. The meat can also be eaten alone or can be cooked to make sweets. When matured, the coconut meat is grated to make coconut milk or cream which is used in cooking sweet or savory dishes. Santan or coconut milk is made by grating the hard coconut meat and soak in hot water. Leave for a couple of minutes and then take handfuls of the grated coconut and press through a sieve or by squeezing the grated meat with both hands. Do this a few times. However, it is tedious to grate and to squeeze, so if in a rush and have no time for making the coconut milk manually, Kelapa is already available in cans and can be bought in supermarkets. In the Philippine wet markets, freshly grated coconut meat can be purchased, you can even choose the coconut fruit and watch the seller grate it in an electric grater and all you have to do is to squeeze it for the cream and the milk at home. Some old households still owes a wooden Kayuran ng Niyog, my aunt who lives in the province grates her own coconut milk using her old reliable native wooden Kayuran.

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List of books: Kelapa