Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia · Volume 09, The Taro Patch, the Pounding Stone and the Sakau Cup
Dokoamai
Pohnpei
An illustration of the dish, not a photograph of it cooked.
- Time
- 2 hours 30
- Reviewed
- Not yet reviewed from inside the tradition
- Cooked
- Not yet cooked and reported
A named, specific Pohnpeian preparation: breadfruit, offered to the Nahnmwarki before ordinary consumption, has its core removed with a stick, the nahi, the cavity filled with ripe breadfruit, banana or banana leaf, and the whole fruit cooked in the uhm, the earth oven.
As tradition built it
Serves 4 to 6. About 2.5 hours.
Ingredients
- 1 whole breadfruit
- to fill ripe banana, mashed, or a second, riper breadfruit's flesh, to fill
- to wrap banana leaf, or foil, to wrap
Method
- Core the breadfruit from the stem end with a sturdy knife, working a cavity roughly 5cm across through the centre.
- Pack the cavity with the mashed ripe banana or riper breadfruit flesh.
- Wrap whole in banana leaf, then foil if no leaf is available.
- Cook in a covered barbecue or Big Green Egg at 150°C for 2 to 2.5 hours, or bury among hot coals if cooking outdoors properly, until a skewer meets no resistance at the centre.
Notes
Quantities reconstructed from documented technique, order of operations and stated timings; no named traditional measured source was found for this dish.
What a modern chef changes
Rested and split, then finished hard over direct coals, the filling served separately as a sauce
Rung 1
Method
- Roast the whole stuffed breadfruit low and covered, as above.
- Rest it, split, then finish the cut faces hard over direct coals for real char and smoke the enclosed method alone does not give.
- Warm the core filling through separately, loosened with a little coconut cream.
- Serve the filling as a sauce, spooned back over sliced breadfruit rather than left inside, a plating choice that shows the technique rather than hiding it.