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Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia · Volume 09, The Taro Patch, the Pounding Stone and the Sakau Cup

Kon

Chuuk

Kon, Chuuk's breadfruit boiled and pounded to a smooth, elastic paste: a smooth, glossy, pale golden quenelle of pounded breadfruit sitting in a shallow pool of coconut milk, its surface stretched and slightly ridged from pounding.

An illustration of the dish, not a photograph of it cooked.

Time
45 minutes
Researched
Researched from 35 sources in the brief, none yet linked in the text
Reviewed
Not yet reviewed from inside the tradition
Cooked
Not yet cooked and reported

Ripe breadfruit boiled until tender, then pounded hot, traditionally with a coral pestle against a wooden board, until smooth and elastic, and customarily served first to the head of the family, plain, with coconut milk, or dipped in soy sauce, itself a post-contact addition.

As tradition built it

Serves 4. About 45 minutes.

Ingredients

Method

  1. Boil the breadfruit for 25 to 30 minutes until a knife meets no resistance.
  2. Pound while hot, in a large mortar or by hand against a board, working in the warm coconut milk gradually.
  3. Continue pounding until the mass turns smooth, glossy and stretches slightly when pulled, 8 to 10 minutes of real work.
  4. Serve warm, in portions, customarily to the head of the family first, with extra coconut milk to spoon over, or dipped in soy sauce.

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

The pounding stage taken over by a blender, pulsed rather than puréed, to keep the elasticity mechanical working gives it

Rungs 2 and 3

Method

  1. Pulse the hot, boiled breadfruit with the coconut milk in a high-power blender in short bursts rather than puréeing continuously, checking texture by hand between bursts, since the traditional method's real virtue is the elasticity that comes from mechanical working, not just heat and moisture.
  2. Build a sauce separately from coconut milk reduced with a little of the breadfruit's cooking water and a drop of donne sali oil.
  3. Serve as a quenelle rather than a mound, sauced, with a scatter of toasted coconut for crunch against the pounded starch's density.
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