Marshall islands

Recipes from Marshall islands that I have cooked:

Roasted fish with juk juk

Macadamia nuts pie

Islas Marshall

Macadamia nuts pie (Marshall islands)

                                                                               Receta en Español

Macadamia nuts are original from Australia nevertheless they are these days produced in Hawaii,California, Cuba , Costa Rica, Brasil, Kenya, Indonesia, Taiwán and  East Africa.

They are not produced in Marshall islands , however Macadamia nuts pie has become very famous in these islands, maybe because of the influence of the U.S.A.

It has a base of short pastry and it is normally accompanied by whipped cream.

Ingredients for the shortcrust pastry:

• 250 grams wheat flour.
• 5 grams salt.  
• 125 grams soft butter.
• 1 egg.
• 2 table spoons cold water.

Ingredients for the filling:

• 65 grams grated coconut.
• 220 grams macadamia nuts cut in half.
• 3 eggs.
• 180 grams brown sugar.
• 200 ml honey.
• 20 grams unsalted butter.
• 2 table spoons coconut milk.

Ingredients for the cream:

• 500 ml de cream at least 35.1% fat.
• 3 table spoons cold coconut milk. 
• 130 grams cold white sugar. 

How to prepare Short pastry:

1- Sieve flour and put it in a bowl.

2- Put  the flour in a mountain shape, make a hole in the middle , put inside sugar, salt, egg and cut butter as you see in the picture: 

3- Add water step by step and mix all the ingredients with the help of your hands until you have a dough, at this moment you should not knead the dough any more.

4- Make a ball with the dough and wrap it in cling film. Let it cool in the fridge for 1 hour.

5- Sprinkle some flour on a surface, stretch the dough with a rolling pin until you reach the shape of the baking mold as you see in the picture:



6- Roll the dough as you see in the picture, this way you can easily take it and put it on the baking mold:



7-  Prick the dough with a fork , this is to prevent the dough to swelling up once it is in the oven:



8-  Put some grated coconut over all the surface of the short pastry.

How to make the filling:

9-  Pour some honey, soft butter, coconut milk, sugar, eggs and mix well.

10-  Add macadamia nuts and stir.

11-  Pour the mixture over the short pastry.

12- Preheat oven at 190 º Celsius and cook 15 minutes. Then reduce the heat to 160 ºCelsius and cook for 25 or 35 minutes until it looks like this:

14- Let it cool.

 How to prepare the cream:

15- Follow the steps described in this article: Whipped cream with a difference , before whipping the cream add 3 tablespoons of coconut milk. It takes a little longer but the final taste is amazing.

16- Serve accompanied by the cream:

My Comments to the Recipe:

You should try this pie, the mixture of honey and sugar is not so sweet as you may think, the butter provides a wonderful taste and the coconut milk gives a tropical and soft taste.
If you let the pie stand for a while it gets better.

 

Marshall Islands

Roasted fish with juk juk

                                                                               Receta en Español

Roasted fish is very common at Marshall islands, they are used to accompany the fish with 'juk juk'  that are glutinous rice balls wrapped in grated coconut.

These balls provide the necessary hidrates to complete the dish, it is an equivalent to our bread.

In Japan and Korea you can find some dishes accompanied by rice balls very similar to 'juk juk' , here we can see the influence of these countries into the Marshall islands gastronomy.

You can use roosterfish or sole, these kind of fishes are similar to those you can find in this islands.

Ingredients:

• 1 roosterfish.
• 170 grams glutinous rice.  
• 60 grams white sugar.
• 275 ml water.
• Grated coconut.

Method

1- Don't forget we are using glutinous rice, you can see at the pictures the differences between normal and glutinous rice:

Glutinous rice

Normal rice

2-  Wash rice until you get a clean water, I had to wash it 10 times , we do this step to get rid of the starch.

3-  Pour 275 ml over the rice and let it stand for 1 hour, now the rice will absorb some water, this will make that the rice will be cooked in less time.

4-  Add sugar, stir and cook whithout a lid for 8 minutes at medium heat.

5-  Let the rice get cool, then make the rice balls with your hands , the size should be like golf balls.

6- Spread some grated coconut on a plate, roll the rice balls on the plate to wrap the balls with coconut.

8- Here you have juk juk:

9-  Now you can roast your fish. Add some salt and pepper. 
Pour some oil on an ovenproof dish.
Make 3 cuts along the surface of the fish and place it into the dish.

11-  Cook the fish in the oven for 15 - 20 minutes at 200 ºC.

12-  Cut the fish in pieces and accompany it by the juk juk.You already have this Marshall islands delicacy!.

 

Islas Marshall