Pacific Islands · Dessert
Fa'ausi
- Intermediate
- 35 min
- roughly 2 of 4 for cost
- Vegetarian
- Vegan
Leads with richness that coats and comforts, a sweet edge rounding the corners.
Ingredients
- 1 kg taro corm, peeled and cut in 5 cm pieces
- 200 ml coconut cream, for the taro
- 3 g fine salt
- 200 g caster sugar
- 60 ml water
- 250 ml coconut cream, for the caramel
The skills inside
Sugar stages & caramelSteaming: basket, leaf and lidSalted water & the float test
Allergen screen
None found among the 14 screened.
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Peel the taro wearing gloves, since the raw sap irritates skin, and boil it in well salted water for 25 minutes to 30 minutes until a knife meets no resistance at the centre of the largest piece. Drain it, pour the cooking water away and let the steam blow off. 25 min
- Pound or coarsely grate the taro while it is still hot, working in the 200 ml coconut cream and the salt until you have a stiff, faintly stringy mass, then roll it up in baking paper into two 6 cm logs and chill for 20 minutes. 20 min
- Melt the sugar with the water in a heavy pan over a medium heat without stirring, swirling the pan only, until it is the colour of dark honey and smells of toast, about 8 minutes. 8 min
- Pull the pan off the heat and pour in the 250 ml coconut cream at arm's length: it will boil up hard and the caramel will seize. Return it to a low heat and stir until the lumps dissolve back into a smooth sauce.
- Slice both logs 2 cm thick, lay the rounds in a warm dish and pour the hot coconut caramel over them.
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the techniques it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Sugar stages & caramel 53 recipes
- Nothing is stirred once it is boiling, and any crystals clinging to the side of the pan are brushed down rather than left to fall in.
- Judged by temperature or by a tested stage rather than by time: consecutive stages are a few degrees apart and look identical in the pan.
- Colour is read off the heat and in good light, remembering that sugar keeps darkening after the flame is out.
- Stopped decisively at the point wanted: off the heat and into the next liquid or onto a cold surface, rather than left to coast in a hot pan.
- The result is clear and smooth rather than grainy, cloudy, or seized into a solid mass.
Where it goes wrong It was stirred after coming to the boil, or a stray crystal from the side of the pan fell back in. One crystal seeds the whole pan and the syrup turns grainy within seconds, and once sugar has crystallised the only cure is more water and starting the whole thing again.
Steaming: basket, leaf and lid 130 recipes
- Steam was running before the food went in: the water at a rolling boil and vapour coming steadily through the basket, rather than the whole thing warming up together.
- Nothing touches the water at any point: the food sits clear of it throughout, and the level neither drops enough to boil dry nor rises enough to wet it.
- The lid stayed on. Every lift costs the chamber its heat, and the number of lifts should be as close to none as the dish allows.
- Lifted out, the surface is glossy and plump with its colour heightened rather than dulled: greens brighter than they went in, not olive.
- Cooked through with the shape intact: it yields at the centre without having slumped or split, and there is no more than a spoonful of clean condensate beneath it.
Where it goes wrong The lid was loose or dripping and the condensate fell back onto the food, so it arrives waterlogged and pale with its seasoning washed down into the bottom of the dish.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Tawny Port
- Also Right
- PX Sherry or bourbon
- From the Taps
- Barleywine
- Zero-Proof
- Cold-brew coffee
Caramel echoing caramel: oxidative aging built the same flavors into the glass that the pan built into the plate.
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