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Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia · Volume 12, The Umu, the Mission and the Sunday Table

Takihi

Niue

Takihi, Niuean layered taro and papaya bake: a thick square of layered pale taro and orange papaya bound in a set coconut cream custard, cut to reveal its striated layers.

Illustration

Time
2 hours 30

Documented at Cafe Fana in Fonuakula, where it appears inside a toasted focaccia sandwich alongside umu-cooked pulled pork and house pickles. NZ Herald/Viva, "The Thrill Of A Great Niuean Restaurant Isn't Just The Food. It's The View" No source found in this research gives a full, gram-quantified traditional recipe; the documented mechanism is what is given.

As tradition built it

15 servings. At least 90 minutes at 180°C fan, then 30 minutes to an hour to cool.

Ingredients

The tradition's method, with the ingredients named. Quantities follow as we verify them.

  • 3 large white taro
  • 6 ripe pawpaw
  • 2 large orange kumara
  • to taste salt
  • tapioca flour
  • 1.5 litres rich coconut cream

Method

  1. Heat the oven to 180°C fan.
  2. Peel the taro, pawpaw and kumara and slice them thinly.
  3. Line a large baking tray with foil, then lay cut-open roasting bags over it, hanging over the sides.
  4. Layer in this order: taro, pawpaw, salt, tapioca, coconut cream. Repeat until everything is used or the tray is full.
  5. Fold the bag lining over, cover with foil, then two more layers of foil.
  6. Bake at least 90 minutes. It is done when it is slightly brown on the bottom.
  7. Cool 30 minutes to an hour before serving.

Notes

Reported method, general rather than precisely quantified.

The recipe is Yetta Simi's, whose family came to New Zealand from Niue, as Manaui gives it; the page says the slices are 50mm thick, which is printed here as thinly. The Coconet's recipe, from I Love Coconut Cream, layers 1 to 2 taro and a pawpaw with onion and a little sugar under 800ml of cream and bakes 1 to 1½ hours; the Heart Foundation's dilutes the cream with water.

What a modern chef changes

Our own staging of takihi's layering logic, since no chef-driven or fine-dining precedent for this dish was found anywhere in this research.

Rungs 1 and 4

Method

  1. Slice the taro and papaya to a controlled, even thickness on a mandoline, giving a more consistent layered set than a hand-cut version achieves.
  2. Bake in a Big Green Egg run indirect, reproducing the umu's even, stored heat over a controlled window. Rung 1.
  3. Reduce a portion of the coconut cream separately before the final pour, giving the finished bake a firmer set at the edges without drying the centre. Rung 4.
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