I Tried To Make Vegan Fried Calamari Out Of Coconut

Oh my God! No freaking way! Why you... Ah! This is amazing! Today, we are going to be making calamari with coconuts. Honestly, we could do a video just about how to open a coconut. We're gonna give you that and more. If you are a child, do not do this. Do not do it alone. Get an adult to help you, please. Honestly, even if you're an adult, get another adult to help you. Don't at me if you chop off your finger. Coconuts are cool. Coconuts are actually sneakily a very good source of fiber. What we're looking for is to scoop out the meat inside of this coconut, because it's got a nice squid-like texture. Without further ado, let's open this bad boy. Two, break into a coconut. You are gonna need a very sharp knife and a mallet. This is a vegan show, just saying. The first thing we're gonna do is we're gonna shave down this top part here with our very sharp knife. Very, very, very sharp knife. So we wanna shave it down until you see the brown little head underneath. A little fire head. This isn't even the dangerous part. This isn't even close. This is the brown that we want. Do you see? I'm in a weird mood today. That was just me warming you up. It only gets more and more dangerous from here. Because we're gonna take this bud, this knife, and you're gonna grip this in your safety grip, which is like holding a pencil. Somebody's gonna yell at me for this. I know it already. Firm grip. Firm. A firm grip is a must. You also need to have passion behind your wrist when you're doing this because you can't have any second thoughts. There's no going back. And focus. Okay? Here we go. Okay? We're gonna do this a lot. Ah, that's the sound we like to hear. My points for being chosen for the roster of being on a desert island just skyrocketed just now. Inside of coconuts is this delicious liquid we call coconut water. You probably buy some horrible version of this at the grocery store, but there is nothing better than coconut water from a fresh coconut. Ah, the sound of life. Look at this beauty. Delicious. This one looks pretty mature. You wanna keep the mature coconuts around. In life, too. You know, the mature coconuts are the ones that'll have your back. A little life tip. Ah, I wanna drink it out of this. Worth it. Delicious. Let's empty our coconut water out. That is good stuff, guys. That is full of electrolytes. We got a damp washcloth. Lay it out here. Cutting board on top. We got no more of that risky business going on. We're gonna come down in a final action here. One final chop. Gonna put your other cloth over the top of this bad boy. You can take your mallet. This is where the wrist comes into play. If your wrist gets all wishy-washy, zigzagging all over the place, you're not gonna have a consistent, straight cut. It's gonna go all over the place. You're not gonna be able to scoop the meat out as well as you would otherwise. Okay, here we go. Yeah, oh my god. Damn. All right. Oh, would you look at that? Now see, that is the stuff of the god. Before we get to these two little friends of ours, we're going to mix up our marinade. For the marinade, we're gonna use caper juice, olive oil, lemon juice, lemon zest, and my favorite thing in the world, garlic. Give it a little stir. Cool, I'm gonna set this aside. So to clean the meat out, we're going to take a spoon. Now, this is the opposite. This is the comedown from the rush you just had from pounding this thing into oblivion. Now you're going to be tender and gentle. What you wanna do is try, if you can, to get the meat out in one fell swoop. So this is what you want. I did a good job. You basically want one big slab like this, because then we're gonna cut it into calamari strips. Pick off some of the little husk parts that stick to the meat. So I'm gonna cut these into half-inch strips, and then I'm gonna plop them directly into my marinade. It looks like a squid. When I first heard of it, I was like, what? But now I see it. Okay, put them all in there. I'm gonna cover this up, and I'm gonna refrigerate it, and I'm gonna let this marinate for about two to four hours. I know, it's a long time. Start reading that book you've had on your nightstand that you're pretending that you're gonna finish, but now you're not going to. Take this opportunity to do that, and I will be back in two to four hours. Goodbye. Okay, that's as good as that's gonna get. Okay, all right, so we've got our little calamari strips out of the fridge, ready to go. And then over here, we've got our mixture. We're gonna have some non-dairy milk. I'm using almond milk, unsweetened. And then some apple cider vinegar. Mix it up a little bit. So over here, we've got our dry mixture, and we're gonna add some all-purpose flour, some semolina flour, and some salt. We're gonna work right down the line. We're gonna take out our marinated calamari strips. We're gonna put them in our liquid mixture. Then we're gonna let it drip off all the excess, and then you toss it in the dry mix. I use my hands, because it's the easiest way to evenly coat it. And this way, you can knock off all the extra stuff, too, so you don't get, like, chunks of flour when you're frying it. I'm gonna put it right in. Ah! The one-handed dry shake is after you've been doing it for a while, you know? So you know I'm a pro. Wow, these crisp up pretty quickly. Woo! Ah, I don't like that, I don't like that! I don't like that at all! But this is a beautiful strip. Yay! This is how I've decided I feel comfortable operating around the hot oil. Oh! I don't like that! I don't like that at all. Thank you. Woo! I don't like it! All right, look at these! These look amazing. I feel like if I were to put these in front of someone, they wouldn't know the difference. I don't think they'd ever think there was anything suspicious, but we have to see what they taste like. So I'm gonna go ahead and do that right now. I don't know about coconut as calamari, I'm not gonna lie, but... Oh my God! Woo! That is fresh! I feel like I'm floating in the ocean right now. Whoa, cool! I like it! I like it, I like it, I like it. Just when I think it can't possibly get better, I just do it. I do it again and again and again. This is humble hour with Merle. I'm very excited about this, feeling very proud. I'm gonna go ahead and bring my friends in. Let's have them try this. We got nothing to worry about. I feel like they're gonna love this. It kind of looks like a bloomin' onion. Ah! These are french fries. No, they're not. French fries? No. French fries aren't vegan already. They're little fingers. Interesting. Shrimp cocoa. It's onion ring. Wait, that's already vegan. Squid? Yes, calamari. Meant to be calamari? Yes. Oh, calamari? Yes! Yay! Oh my God, that makes me so happy. This is so weird, because the texture is so, so spot on. Let me ask you this. Are you liking it? No. What is this made of? You gotta guess. Some type of tofu paper? I'm gonna guess onion without even biting it. No? Nope. It's not an onion. No. Is this a mushroom? Nah, B. Oh, I know what that is. You do? It's coconut. How do you know? I love coconut flesh, that's why. Are you kidding? This is impossible! Oh my God. No freaking way. No way. This is a coconut? Yeah. This is amazing! You're in a restaurant. Here you go, sir. Mm, oh. Can I take you out after your shift's over? That's what I would say. Not to women now, though. Like Mr. Calamari, I'm gonna say a nine. Solid nine. Nine. Nine? Yeah. I would say seven. I gave it a two. Overall, I'm gonna give it a 10. 7.5 out of 10. It's so good, do you like it? I do, I really loved it. I'm very pleased with your work. Well done. No, no. No! Okay, please cut. She's excited. Please cut. Cut, cut, cut, cut. Great.