Tribewanted: Vorovoro

This week, Team Kana bring to you delicious, zesty homemade pawpaw jam…perfect dribbled over a chunk of baked, wholemeal bread straight from the oven.

Vorovoro is lucky enough to be blessed with an abundance of pawpaw trees and you will often see tribe members wandering through the gardens on the search for a juicy, orangey, yellow fruit…

The great thing about Pawpaw (also known as papaya) is the diversity of what you can do with it and how you can use it during the different stages of ripeness…you just have to make sure you knock the fruit down before the bats do!

Pawpaw season in Fiji is generally all year round but the best time according to Kesa ‘is when the sun shines’ so ripe and ready to eat during April through to October. At the moment, the trees are plentiful and almost bursting with fruit but need just a few more weeks to ripen before we can go back to having pawpaw with all meals of the day and a few left over. For now, we have managed to find some which are ripe enough to be made into a preserve to provide the tribe a tasty sweet spread…

Jam is surprisingly very easy to make but just requires a bit of guess work and a little sprinkle of time…and the beauty of this recipe is that you can adapt it to the quantity of your ingredients!

Pawpaw Jam

INGREDIENTS:

3 large pawpaws
Approximately 4 bowls of Demerera sugar
9 lemons or limes (or push the boat out and go for a citrus mixture!)

METHOD:

Firstly, slice each pawpaw into half and scrape out the black seeds.
Then grate the pawpaw into a large bowl and completely cover with fresh water and allow an inch on top too.
Leave to soak for 30 minutes but the longer, the better….
Once this has been soaked, measure how much paw paw you have by filling up a small bowl and pouring into a saucepan. This will be approximately 6 bowls but this depends on the size of your pawpaws!

The amount of sugar you need depends on how many bowls of grated pawpaw you have….so 6 bowls of pawpaw equals 4 bowls of sugar, 9 bowls of paw paw equals 7 bowls of sugar…etc. This depends also on how sweet you like your jam…sometimes the Fijians put equal measurements of paw paw and sugar but we don’t want the tribe members to start loosing their teeth so less is best!

Firstly heat the fruit and allow to gently cook until soft.
Then pour in the sugar and stir. The sugar must only be added after the fruit is soft otherwise it will crystallize.
Leave to simmer for approximately 4 hours but continue to check that it is not burning or over bubbling and give the occasional stir…

Once most of the water has evaporated and the texture has thickened, test by taking a little spoonful out and letting it cool. (don’t be tempted to taste it, it will be VERY hot!)
Once it has cooled, use your finger to push the jam across the spoon. If it ripples, it shows that it is setting! If it still quite a runny consistency and slides easily off the spoon, it needs longer.

Once you have witnessed the ripples, it is time to add in the citrus juice! This is only added in at this stage as otherwise it would make the pawpaw go hard.

Cut the lemons or limes and sque e e e ze into a bowl, removing the pips.
Pour half the juice into the jam and stir. Taste but be careful not to burn your tongue!
If it is still very sweet and you would like more of a tangy taste, add in the remaining juice. You can also grate some of the rind into the sticky goo to add extra texture and bring out the citrus flavours.
Cook for another 30 minutes, turn off the heat and allow to cool.
As the jam cools, it will thicken but if it is still runny the next day and hasn’t completely set, you can always wack it on the heat for a little longer.

Once ready, pour into some sterile jam jars (reusing rocks!) and seal with a sterile jam jar lid…

Set!

SERVING TIP FROM VA:

‘Pawpaw jam is very good on the doughnut I make; you know the fried ones as well as the pancake, the flat one, yes. Good to put a few spoonfuls in the middle like that and then roll it up. Yes. Really good…and the tribe members also put it in their porridge with some grated coconut and a bit of the banana…they love it. Yes’

Another tasty tip is that you can actually follow the same recipe but use different fruit or a combination of a few to make some more jumping jars of homemade happiness. On the island, we have also made pineapple jam in a similar way but you just need to cut out the brown bits and dice instead of grate…live a little and attempt an experiment :)

So good luck with making the jamu weleti, start dolloping it on all kinds of goodness and be surprised at how flavoursome (and deliciously addictive) it is…ooooh yes!