This recipe has been taken from a recipe book put together by Peace Corps volunteers in Samoa in the early 1990s, which was shared with our Executive Director and Country programs Coordinator while volunteering with Palms Australia. Palusami is a traditional savoury Samoan dish that involves cooking coconut cream and onion in a young taro leaf.
Ingredients
- 1 cup coconut cream
- 1 small onion, finely chopped
- Juice of ½ a lemon
- 6 young taro leaves*
- Salt (to taste)
Method
Mix the coconut cream, onion and lemon juice in a bowl. Place about six halves of taro leaves on top of each other in the palms of your left hand (if you are right-handed). Cup your left hand, and with the fingers of your right hand press down in the centre so that the leaves form a cup.
Ladle in about ½ a cup of the coconut mixture. Fold together the leaves at the top of the cup to more or less seal in the liquid. Seal into a cupped piece of foil. Repeat with remaining mixture.
Bake at 180 degrees for about ½ an hour. When cool, remove foil and serve rice, mashed potato or bread (traditionally served with breadfruit or taro).
*Use only young, fresh taro leaves or substitute with large spinach leaves.