The World Table

An interactive culinary compendium: recipes, lexicon and study

Pacific Islands · Main

Laplap with Chicken

  • Intermediate
  • 45 min
  • roughly 2 of 4 for cost

rich · fiery Leads with richness that coats and comforts, real fire that builds and stays.

Ingredients

  • 1.2 kg taro or yam, peeled
  • 600 g green banana, peeled
  • 800 g chicken thighs, bone in and skin on
  • 500 ml coconut cream
  • 200 ml water
  • 8 g fine salt
  • 150 g onion, sliced
  • 10 g fresh chilli, chopped
  • 6 large banana leaves, passed over a flame until they turn glossy and pliable

Equipment

Thermometer · Sheet pan

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

  1. Wearing gloves, because raw taro sap drives calcium oxalate needles into the skin and this is a lot of grating, grate the taro and green banana on the fine side of the grater into a wet paste that mounds on the spoon rather than running off it.
  2. Beat in the coconut cream, water and salt until it is the thickness of a heavy batter.
  3. Line a deep tray with overlapping banana leaves and build it no more than 5 cm deep: half the batter, then the chicken, onion and chilli, then the rest of the batter.
  4. Fold the leaves into a sealed parcel and bake at 180C (350F) until the chicken reads 74C (165F) at the bone and the batter is set enough to cut, 90 minutes to 2 hours 30 minutes depending on how deep the tray is. The thermometer decides this, not the clock. 90 min
  5. Rest the parcel 15 minutes before opening it, because the starch firms as it cools and it will then slice instead of slumping. 15 min

At the Table

The Pour
Off-dry Riesling (Mosel Kabinett)
Also Right
Gewürztraminer or off-dry Chenin
From the Taps
Crisp lager or pilsner
Zero-Proof
Agua fresca or iced jasmine tea

Sugar, cold, and low alcohol are the fire code: sweetness tames capsaicin while acid resets the palate; tannin would fan the flames.

Saved on this device and kept across visits: export from My Menu to move them.

Film school

This dish, cooked on camera Search films of Laplap with Chicken The cuisine, deeper Technique films from the Pacific Islands kitchen