Kitchen Experiments - Part 1

Last week during the Teuila Festival a new pacific cookbook was launched – Me’a Kai by Robert Oliver. It is a really nice looking book, full of great photos and pacific style recipes, so we decided to get a copy. Inspired by looking at the colourful photos I stopped in at the market on my way home from my Sunday morning run and stocked up on pawpaw, breadfruit, coconuts etc. While Angela was diligently studying for her netball exam later in the day I started experimenting in the kitchen – with mixed success!!

First up I decided to make a warm coconut breakfast drink. There is a Samoa version that I enjoy (Vaisalo), but have never made – you can just by it from the market or roadside stalls. There was a Tongan variation of the recipe in the book, so I decide to have a go. It involves using the juice and soft flesh from green coconuts and boiling this up with a bit of lemongrass and vanilla to make a thick, warm coconut drink. I couldn’t get hold of any lemongrass, so threw in a wedge of lemon instead. It turned out really yummy, but I seriously underestimated how much juice I was going to get out of the coconuts and ended up making a huge stockpot full of this drink, only to realise that Angela doesn’t really like hot coconut drinks!! I drunk several mug fulls over the day, but still had a pot full left!

Next I made some breadfruit dumplings with coconut caramel sauce. These were relatively easy to make, after I had grated the coconuts to make the coconut cream. But again this was not a hit with Ang. She doesn’t enjoy the stodgy starchy foods – the only way she likes breadfruit is when I make breadfruit chips! So, I decided not to make anymore breadfruit dumplings and used the rest of my mashed breadfruit to make a breadfruit loaf. This was much more successful – we both enjoyed this one!

By this stage Angela was wanting to prepare for her exam and I had made a total mess of the kitchen, so it was time for a break!

After lunch (boring sandwiches) I went back to the kitchen. I still had some grated coconut, coconut cream and lemon to use up and found a recipe for Coconut Lemon Cream Pie. This sounded good – a pie with a coconut layer, a lemon cream layer and topped off with meringue! While Ang was sitting her exam I had a go at this pie. The crust was no problem and the coconut filling came up good, but when I got to the lemon cream filling I found that I had no condensed milk! No panic – now that I can get internet access on my phone it was just a quick trip to Google and I found a recipe for a condensed milk substitute! This seemed to come out alright and after a bit of fun separating the eggs the lemon cream layer was done. I was running out of patience by the time I got to the meringue, so it wasn’t the lightest, fluffiest meringue ever but it was getting late and I wanted to get the pie in the oven! Well, as the say ‘the proof of the pudding is in the eating’ and this one definitely passed the test!!

By this stage the major drawback of my day experimenting in the kitchen became obvious - a mountain of dishes and no dishwasher!!