Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia · Volume 12, The Umu, the Mission and the Sunday Table
ʻOtai
Tonga
Illustration
- Time
- 5 minutes
- Researched
- 29 sources cited
Documented in diaspora at Simiz Kai Lelei, East Palo Alto, where it is made with Cool Whip in place of fresh coconut cream, a detail worth keeping for what it shows about a household adapting a traditional recipe to American supermarket stock. Redwood City Pulse, "Simiz Kai Lelei brings Tongan and Samoan flavors to East Palo Alto and beyond"
As tradition built it
About 5 minutes, no cooking
Ingredients
The tradition's method, with the ingredients named. Quantities follow as we verify them.
- ½ watermelon, sliced and grated
- 120 ml pineapple, chopped
- 60 ml grated coconut
- to taste sugar
- 120 ml coconut milk
- optional ice
Method
- Grate the watermelon and the coconut.
- Mix all the ingredients together and stir.
- Add ice if you like.
Notes
The recipe is Lavinia Uhila, Nastassia Wolfgramm and Chef Sio's, Tongan Taste on The Coconet. The Coconet's other 'otai, from I Love Coconut Cream, scrapes a whole watermelon and a mango into a punch bowl with crushed pineapple, a tin of coconut milk and about 3 cups of cold water. Both grate or scrape by hand.
What a modern chef changes
Our own technique work, since no chef-driven precedent for ʻotai was found in this research.
Method
- Freeze the watermelon and coconut mixture into a granita, scraping with a fork every 30 minutes as it sets, rather than serving it as a crushed-ice drink.
- Dehydrate a portion of thin-sliced watermelon separately for a crisp garnish shard, a texture contrast the drink form does not offer.
- Serve in a chilled glass with the granita and the dehydrated shard together, keeping the watermelon-and-coconut flavour pairing exact while changing its form entirely.
Notes
No numbered rung; offered as original chapter work rather than attributed reportage.