Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia · Volume 13, One Reef, Two Flags
Kaʻaku
The Marquesas
Illustration
- Time
- 30 minutes
- Researched
- 17 sources cited
Cooked breadfruit is pounded warm with a wooden pestle, penu, in a large wooden bowl, ʻumete, called hoana in Marquesan, while gradually adding coconut cream, to a smooth rich paste. Not itself a fermented dish, though it can be made from popoi, the fermented breadfruit paste described in the Ferment Bench above. This is the clearest illustration here of Rung 4, mechanical starch work as a real, learnable skill. [destinationmarquises.com; yummy-tahiti.com]
As tradition built it
In the embers 20 to 30 minutes a side.
Ingredients
- 1 ripe 'uru (breadfruit), with small white traces in its furrows
- as needed wood and coconut husk, for the fire
- 1 coconut, grated and pressed in a cloth for its milk
- as needed water, for the board
Method
- Build a wood fire with coconut husk. When the embers are red, lay the 'uru in them and cover it with husk.
- Burn the skin black, 20 to 30 minutes, then turn it and cook the other side. When the fruit is black all over, it is cooked.
- Meanwhile grate the coconut and press it in a cloth for its milk.
- Lift the 'uru out with several thick green leaves.
- While it is still very hot, scrape off the charred crust with the handle of a fork. The flesh beneath looks like a well-baked potato.
- Wet the wooden board, the hoana, so the hot flesh does not stick.
- Crush the hot 'uru with the stone pestle, the penu, kneading the fibres to a smooth paste.
- Mix in the coconut milk.
Notes
Not itself a fermented dish, though it can be made from popoi, the fermented breadfruit paste described in the Ferment Bench above.
The method is Anette and Pono's, Marquesan hosts in the valley of Taaoa on Hiva Oa, as Tama'a magazine watched them make it for a kaikai at the 'uru festival. RecettesTahitiennes adds water while kneading and pours 25 cl of coconut milk over the paste. Both pound with a stone pestle, not a wooden one.
What a modern chef changes
The hand-pounding technique itself respected rather than shortcut, with the blender used only for a genuine second product, not a replacement.
Rung 4
Method
- Pound the breadfruit by hand for the primary dish, since the technique's own point is the specific texture continuous mechanical pounding gives, distinct from a blender's shearing action; this is one dish in the volume this chapter does not recommend mechanising.
- Reserve a small portion and purée it separately in a high-power blender with extra coconut cream, to make a second, pourable version as a sauce for the plated dish, giving two textures from one preparation rather than compromising the primary one.
- Warm the wooden bowl itself before pounding, keeping the breadfruit at working temperature throughout rather than letting it cool and stiffen partway through.