I first had coconut bacon the day I made the Cafe Gratitude worker tear up for bugging me with their hippy ways (aka, the first day I went to Cafe Gratitude for take out at my old job). It was on a sandwich and smokey, crunchy and awesome, probably a bit extra salty from the tears. Seriously, don’t mess with me when I’m hungry, hippies. Anyway, I thought I could make some myself.
Found a recipe in Rawsome! and went to task. Problem though: how much “meat” is 6 coconuts? No clue. I bought some big flaked coconut at Whole Foods so I went with half the package. Looking back there wasn’t enough marinade but I didn’t want it to be too saturated since dehydrating really intensifies things. Turns out it wasn’t marinated enough and it didn’t have the huge smokey flavour that the one I had at the restaurant did since at this stage you could still taste the coconut quite a bit. Next time I plan to add way more even if it takes a bit more dehydration time. Also I found even bigger slivers of coconut bagged at Trader Joe’s on an end cap so that’s a pretty good sign I need to make this again. It went quite fast on salads and such though!
I found those big slivers of coconut at TJs, too. I’ve just been eating it straight out of the bag. Mmm, coconut.