Culinary Delights

Culinary Delights

Yes this is a blog entry that’s not about coffee! This time it’s about food and some great local cuisine I had while in the Cook Islands recently. It was a bit of a surprise how good some of the food was, especially the local specialities.

The Cook Islands is situated in the Pacific Ocean. To the west is Tonga and to the East is French Polynesia.

While I was in the Cook Islands, twice I had a local speciality called Ika Mata. Ika Mata is a traditional dish of the Cook Islanders. This dish uses local fish as its main ingredient. The fish is cut and diced and thrown into a bowl. Lime juice is added which ‘cooks’ the fish. The other key ingredient is coconut cream, which adds a beautiful texture and mouth feel to the dish. Then some red onion, coriander and salt and pepper can be added for seasoning and flavour. A very enjoyable and refreshing dish in a warm tropical country!

Another speciality of the locals is called Umu. This is their version of a BBQ, but in the ground. It is said to be similar to the Maori hangi in New Zealand. However, the hangi uses timber, creating a smoky flavour in the food. The umu mainly uses rocks as its heat/cooking source. The rocks initially warm the bed in which the cooking will take place, for three or more hours. We had a great Umu on a tour that we did. Lamb chops, chicken, kumera, taro and a local variety of spinach were added into the cooking tray. This was then wrapped in banana leaves (which release a natural oil during the cooking process) and then placed in the ground and covered with more banana leaves. Our tour guide told us that these banana leaves were ‘borrowed’ from a neighbour – if you know what I mean! So three hours after 4WDing up the mountains of Rarotonga, we returned to our Umu. It was delicious, though I think I ate too much! But the male tour guide was pleased and impressed with my apetite!

One other meal was so tasty that my wife and I ordered it the following night again from the same restaurant! It was a BBQ pork belly dish – which was very moist and juicy. But as impressive was the salsa! It was a green mango and paw paw salsa – it had a lovely sweetness and some coriander as well. Another enjoyable dish.