Outdoor Cooking : Cooking Rice Inside Coconut

If you got stranded in a tropical place without any cooking utensils, you can very easily cook your food inside coconuts and bamboos.

In this instructable let us see how can we cook Rice inside a coconut

• A large sized, husked coconut
• About 100 grams of Rice
• About 25 to 30 grams of Jaggery. It is optional.I have added jaggery for the rice to be more tasteful

• Before cooking Rice inside coconut, soak in water till the rice grains are soft
• Drain out water and place it on a wet cotton cloth so that the rice grains remain moist and soft

• Cut a 2 ft long stick from a tree which is not toxic. Here I have cut a stick from a Guava tree
• Sharpen one end for about 2 inches as shown in the picture
• Remove the bark from the stick if possible

• The jaggery we have is a large one weighing about 300 grams.
• Scrap out about 25 to 30 grams of jaggery from the large piece
• Transfer the moist rice to a plate and add powdered jaggery to it and mix well

• After removing all the fibre from the coconut, you can see 3 eyes on one end
• With the help of a knife, open up the eye at the center and make a hole. You can do it with the sharpened stick also

• Make a small funnel with a piece of paper and place it over the hole
• Place small amounts of rice mix in the funnel and push with a stick inside. Alternately, you can take small amount of mix in your fingers and push it inside the coconut

• Matured coconuts have some empty space and water inside. If you find that you can not put all rice inside due to the water, drain out a little and keep rest inside
• Once the rice mix is filled inside coconut, plug the hole tightly with the sharpened edge of stick we made earlier
• The 2 ft long stick will also help us in rotating the coconut in fire

• Dig a small hole in an open area
• Collect dried pieces of sticks and branches from surrounding area
• Break sticks in small lengths and fill the trench
• Using some old news paper or dried leaves, start fire

• Once the fire is started, place the rice-filled coconut with stick on fire and keep the fire going
• You need to keep the fire going for more than half an hour for the rice to cook
• From time to time keep rotating the coconut in fire using the long handle
• The outer shell of the coconut will be completely burned and the outer surface of the coconut meat will also come in contact with fire
• Do not worry about that and keep the fire going. The fire will burn and blacken only the outer surface of the coconut meat and the inside will remain white

• After half an hour remove burned coconut from fire
• Push the stick inside and take out. It will come with few grains of rice.
• Check whether the rice is properly cooked or not and water is still inside.
• If not keep the coconut on fire for some more time
• Once the rice is cooked, take out the coconut from fire and allow to cool
• Put out the fire and fill the hole with the removed earth from it

• Once the coconut is cooled, remove the stick
• Using a knife remove burned shell still attached to the surface
• Scrap out burned outer surface of coconut meat as much as possible

• Cut open the coconut. Inside you will find the cooked rice as well as the cooked coconut meat
• The rice in my case is 3/4th done and edible
• Eat the cooked rice with chunks of coconut

Enjoy your Lunch and have fun...