MAGGI Real Coconut Milk Powder is fresh coconut milk pressed from Sri Lankan coconuts and spray-dried into a fine white powder at the Nestlé factory in Sri Lanka. It does the job of a freshly squeezed coconut without the grating, squeezing and straining: you stir as much as you need into warm water, or tip it straight into the pan, and put the rest of the pack away. The front of the pack carries the flash "Made with fresh, high quality Sri Lankan Coconuts", and cooks reach for it because it gives the thickness and taste of coconut milk on a weeknight, in a quantity they choose, with nothing left over to use up.
The pack prints two ratios under "Coconut milk made easy". For thick milk, stir 2 tablespoons of powder into 150 ml of warm water. For thin milk, use 1 tablespoon of powder to 150 ml of warm water. You do not have to mix it first at all: the powder can be shaken straight into a simmering pan or into a batter and worked in with the rest of the liquid. The pack also prints serving guides for milk rice, curry and watalappan.
- Kiribath and sweet coconut rotti, where you want a thick milk stirred through the rice or worked into the flour.
- Fish, chicken, dhal and potato curries, from a thin milk at the start of the pot to a thick milk finished at the end.
- Hopper batter, and watalappan set with jaggery and egg.
- Coconut sambol-style gravies, loosened to the consistency you want by changing the amount of powder.
- Thai, Malaysian and southern Indian curries, rendang, and coconut-based soups and sauces.
- Cakes and biscuits, coffee, smoothies and cold desserts.
It behaves well in a busy kitchen: it does not split in acidic gravies or under long simmering above boiling point, and it holds up to freezing, cooking and thawing. Once the pack is opened, place the contents in an airtight container and always use a dry spoon.
In the pack: four ingredients and nothing else — coconut milk (74%), maltodextrin, milk based sodium caseinate and tri sodium phosphate — with no artificial colours, no artificial flavours and no added preservatives. The ingredient list includes milk based sodium caseinate, which is derived from milk, so this powder is not suitable for anyone avoiding dairy. The pack carries the Sri Lanka Standards mark SLS 1309.
Manufactured and distributed by Nestlé Lanka PLC, Colombo 10, whose Nestlé Coconut Plan is run with the Coconut Cultivation Board to build local growers' knowledge and give them technical support, and shipped to you from Sri Lanka by Lakpura.
