Tribewanted: Vorovoro

The 3rd year celebrations are getting closer, festival fortnight has started today and the island is buzzing with excitement. Tribe numbers are increasing, the energy is building and the singing and drumming is getting louder…

soOOo to get us all in the mood and to embrace fantastic Fijian food, this week our Vorovoro kitchen brings to you baked fish with a delicious island sauce…ooh smells heavenly!

As we have a lot of hungry mouths to feed, (after all that meke practise and grog pounding…) we need a lot of fish! This recipe is based for a full tribe so either reduce everything to how much you need or if you fancy some Fijian fun, bring out your sulu jabas, put flowers behind your ears, listen to the guitar strumming and beautiful harmonious voices, (…and Leavi’s horse impressions and Tale‘s eeeeh ho) on Vorovoro Sessions and host your very own fishy feast!

Wati, Francis’ daughter is helping us out in the kitchen this week and has been whizzing around making all the work surfaces shine, the pots sparkle as well as preparing some amazing food for the tribe. This week, she has been busy preparing our Tui Tuesday Fijian meal with Justine (a lovely jubbly French tribe member) and you can hear their laughter echoing around the village.

This is a super easy recipe and tastes fantastic so get your aprons at the ready and start dancing around the kitchen…

Baked Fish (Serves 30)

INGREDIENTS:

4kg Fish
The larger the fish, the easier it is to prepare so on Sevu sevu day this week, we bought an enormous Salmon Cod fish from the local fishermen which the Fijians call ‘Loia’. When going to buy your fish, go for a fresh, fleshy one!
4 Onions
4 lemons

SAUCE INGREDIENTS:

1 cup oil
Although we use canola oil on the island, extra virgin olive oil is an even better choice
½ cup soy sauce
Dark mushroom is a good choice!
½ cup vinegar
On Vorovoro, we use white cider vinegar but Balsamic would also be a tasty one.
4 pieces of ginger roughly 5cm long
A full clove of garlic
oooh yes!
A variety of spices: chilli powder, fennel seeds, mustard seeds
A grinding of black pepper
A shaking of salt

METHOD:

In true Fiji style, gut and scale the fish, take out the backbone and chop off the head and tail…
Slice fish into approximately 30 chunky squares, removing any bones

Now for the scrumptious sauce preparation…

Mix the sauce ingredients altogether in a bowl. Have a little taste to see..does it need more spices, black pepper, salt?
Find a large baking tray and layer with a banana leaf. This helps to keep the heat in. Ooh, if you don’t happen to have one in your back garden, tin foil also does the job.
Fully dip each piece of fish into the bowl of sauce and place next to each other on top of the banana leaf, or as Wati describes it ‘arrange nicely, hahahahaha’ Fijians love to laugh about anything :)

Then cut the onions into circles and arrange around the fish.
S q u e e z e the lemon on top of the fish and give an extra squirt inside the pieces but be careful of the pips.
Once all the fish has been covered and ‘nicely’ nestled in, wrap up in the banana leaves and tuck around to the fish

Now for the baking!

Sizzle for 30 minutes at a fairly high temperate (around 180 degrees).
Unwrap some of the leaves (or foil) to check if fish is bubbling away. Use a stick or knife and push into the centre of a couple of pieces of fish to see if it soft and tender.
Once the fish looks ready, cook for another 15 minutes to golden the edges.

As Tui Tuesdays is our Fijian day through and through, and would not be the same without having lots of grog, cake and more grog…the fish is served up with a tasty root vegetable…cassava chips being the firm favourite although today we have a sampling of yam from our gardens! When we have ripe bread fruit on our trees, we also have bread fruit fritters or bread fruit mash! It also wouldn’t be the same without ‘meaty’; a creamy sauce the Fijians make out of coconut milk, finely chopped onions and a little snippet of chilli. Bele which is from the spinach family is also a great side dish to add to the Fijian flavours. Or if you fancy keeping it simple, the fish is just as appetising with potato chips and a refreshing salad.

SERVING TIP FROM WATI:

‘To make the fish look nice, garnish with black pepper, fresh herbs and extra lemon on top. We Fijians love this very much. So special. When we have a party or something like that, we eat the fish like this’

Thank you Wati for sharing as well as Justine for being a huge help in the kitchen. Happy fish sizzling!