Tribewanted: Vorovoro

e e e e e w H O O o O o O O o!
The rainy season is now well and truly behind us, 5 of Team Fiji are getting excited about coming to England in July, the sun is shining, the sea is calm and the pig pen is almost complete…and seeing as June is my birthday month and everyone loves a bit of sugar now and again, we will be spoiling our tribe with some very sweet and mouth watering Vorovoro recipes in the next few weeks…

Sooo, to bounce into the month and document a firm favourite amongst the tribe, our kitchen brings to you Vorovoro’s very own monkey balls!

If you haven’t already sampled Va’s monkey balls, then you are in for a real treat! They often appear at afternoon tea time (perfect with Francis’ refreshing lemon tea…) although recently, the tribe have experienced complete ‘monkey ball’ indulgence at breakfast time too!

Monkey balls are ideal for any social gathering (especially on a beautiful summer evening after a BBQ), extremely easy to make and are a delicious, sugary nibble made purely to make you lick your lips and your mouth drool…just be careful you aren’t tempted to gobble them all up at once!

Monkey Balls with raisins (Polo ni maqe) makes approx. 40

INGREDIENTS:

6 cups flour
4 cups coconut milk (alternatively, you can use coconut cream from a tin but it will need to be watered down to a runnier consistency)
1 cup sugar
6 teaspoons Baking powder
100g raisins or sultanas
1 pinch salt
Vanilla essence
Oil (the choice is yours but if you want the true Vorovoro monkey ball, we use Canola!)

METHOD:

Grab a bowl and throw in the flour, sugar, raisins, baking powder and salt. Mix together.
Add a couple of drops of vanilla essence.
Then add the coconut milk little by little, gently stirring with your hands.
The dough should be squidgy and wet and should slide off the spoon but needs to be a thicker texture than the flat pancake mix.

Now for the d e e p f r y i n g decadents…

Pour about 2 inches of oil into a deep frying pan so the monkey balls can float and allow to heat until it bubbles.

Qarauna! Watch out! The oil will be V E R Y hot so please be careful…

Fill a bowl with water…ooh yes, very important step from Va! This is to dip your hands into each time you make a monkey ball so the dough doesn’t stick to your hands…

Sooo, dip your hands in the water, then scoop up some dough making a small ball and gently place into the oil. Be careful not to drop it in at a height otherwise the H O T oil will splash back!
Keep making small balls until frying pan is full of them.

Let them bob!

Balls will turn on their own but occasionally help them roll around using a long fork.

The great thing about monkey balls according to Va is that they don’t actually soak up that much oil so they are good for you! Wow

Let them cook for 10 minutes or until crispy and golden.
Then, carefully fish them out, giving each a shakey shake to get rid of any excess oil and pile up on a plate (like they do on the Ferrero Rosher adverts!)

Then use the same oil to start the next batch…

Kamikamica! S w e e t

SERVING TIP FROM VA:

‘The monkey balls, they love it, hehehehe…you people like it with the lemon and sugar, yes. It’s great with honey too….and have you tried one with the Pawpaw jam? R e a l l y tasty’

Right monkeys, the tea bell has gone and Va has just brought out her monkey balls and the tribe are going wild…good luck and please share your monkey ball stories!

V i n a k a