Not Just Stew · The atlas · A working atlas of the world's cooking

Aotearoa and Australia · Volume 01, Fire, the Stone Trap and the Reef Garden

Sop sop

Torres Strait, Cape York

Sop sop, a Torres Strait yam stew: a thick, pale golden stew of tender yam pieces in a glossy coconut sauce, served in a dark wooden bowl, a faint sheen of oil pooling at the surface.

Illustration

Time
1 hour 30

Yam, the Torres Strait's own staple starch, stewed. Evelyn Billy, a Torres Strait Islander and Aboriginal woman who grew up between Townsville and Injinoo, Cape York, and now runs a shopfront and food van supplying Townsville boarding schools serving Indigenous students from remote Cape York and Torres Strait communities, names sop sop among her signature dishes. ABC News No source consulted gives a full, quantified recipe, and the dish is given at the level of detail its sourcing supports.

As tradition built it

Reported at the level of detail available

Serves 6 to 8. 1½ hours on a low heat.

Ingredients

To serve

Method

  1. Peel and roughly chop the yam, sweet potato, pumpkin, taro and onion. Put them in a large stock pot or casserole.
  2. Add the coconut cream and stock. The vegetables should sit under at least 4 to 5cm of liquid.
  3. Cook on a low heat, uncovered, for 1½ hours, until it is a stew with good chunks of soft vegetable through it.
  4. Serve with steamed rice.

Notes

The recipe is Nornie Bero's, of Mer Island, as ABC News printed it (2 July 2019); she writes of the women of the village round one large pot, throwing in peeled yams while having a yarn. Her SBS version sweats the onion in oil first, uses cassava for yam, adds coconut milk and celery salt, and cooks it covered 40 minutes until the vegetables break down.

What a modern chef changes

The yam's cook staged with controlled equipment

Rungs 2 and 6

Method

  1. Cook the yam sous vide at a controlled temperature for an even, fully tender result a stovetop simmer cannot guarantee across an uneven root.
  2. Strain the coconut milk through a chinois for a clean, grit-free sauce before finishing the stew.
  3. Finish briefly in a Big Green Egg run indirect, reproducing the gentle, enclosed heat of a slow stovetop simmer with more even, stable temperature control.

Notes

In the spirit of Evelyn Billy's own stated mission to see Torres Strait food properly represented.

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