More Evil Cooking-Coconut Pie

This recipe comes from our sweet next door neighbor. If there's any advice that I can give you is to move next door to an elderly good Southern cook that is willing to give up her recipes.

I never really liked coconut growing up, but then again, I hated turnip greens, celery and raw oysters too. Still hate celery unless it's slathered in pimento cheese so you can't taste it. This pie is easy but a bit time consuming since you really do need to use a real coconut, the dried stuff in the vacuum packed bag is nasty.

Coconut Pie
1 baked deep dish pie shell
2 cups half and half
3 eggs, separated
1/2 cup sugar
3 tablespoons flour
1 tablespoon butter
pinch of salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
meat from 1 coconut

Heat milk and butter over low/medium heat. Beat egg yolks, sugar, vanilla and flour in separate bowl; add to milk. Add grated coconut and cook until thickened. Pour into pie shell.

Beat egg whites with 8 tablespoons sugar until stiff and glossy (helps if they are room temperature). Spread over pie mixture and bake at 350 until brown as desired.

Serve with an angioplasty.


Hints--to crack a coconut, first I drive a nail into one of the eyes and drain the milk and then I simply take it outside to the driveway and smash it down on the concrete.
Use a vegetable peeler to peel the husk from the meat and grind it with a food grater, blender or food processor (the latter my favorite)

I'm a biggie on raw egg safety and usually hate merangue. However, I baked this pie last night and the top came out very sweet and crispy like divinity. It took about 30 minutes in the oven. I personally can't stand that sea foamy/cottage cheesy type of stuff my mother makes on top of pies.