Kerisik is used in cooking. Coconut is grated, toasted, then ground to a paste. It is sometimes referred to as coconut butter. It can be made at home or bought ready-made.
Fresh kerisik can be easily made from fresh coconut which is grated and fried, then ground in a mortar and pestle.
Kerisik, made of toasted grated coconut is often added to the famous caramelized curry known as ‘rendang’. Both beef and chicken rendang usually have kerisik listed as one of the many ingredients needed. Kerisik is added to the curry for it to be stewed along with other ingredients to create a complex but extremely delicious-tasting curry.
Besides ‘rendang’, other dishes such as ‘nasi ulam’, ‘nasi kerabu’ and ‘serunding’ (spiced grated coconut) uses this special ingredient too. It is used for its fragrance, creamy flavour and natural preservative function. Dishes which have kerisik added to them last longer. This is a little trick used back in the days when refrigerators weren’t widely available.
The best kerisik uses freshly grated coconut which is carefully toasted over low heat until it reaches the ideal golden brown shade. The toasted coconut is then pounded until the natural oil is released. This results in a shiny oily brown paste which is referred to as kerisik. Sounds simple but it can be quite tedious due to the pounding.
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