Rachel takes on Korovou's Kokonda

Passport & Plate - Korovou's Kokonda

Fiji | Friday, March 6, 2015 | 3 photos

Ingredients
Lemons
Spanish mackerel or yellow fin tuna
Coconut milk
Celery
Tomato
Cucumber
Carrot
Red and green capsicum
White onion
Pineapple
Salt
Pepper

 

How to prepare this recipe
1. Cut fish into bite size pieces. Squeeze lemons into a bowl. Soak the fish in lemon juice
2. Once fish turns white strain the lemon juice and add coconut milk
3. Season with salt and pepper
4. Add celery, tomato, cucumber, carrot, red and green capsicum, white onion and pineapple

 

The story behind this recipe
For my 25th birthday my best friend and I decided to escape the cold of Australia and relax for a week on the pristine beaches of the Yasawa Islands in Fiji. Over the course of the week we stayed on three different spectacular islands. Two of those days were spent on Naviti Island at the Korovou Eco Tour Resort. On my actual birthday we went swimming with manta rays and trekked to a private beach with two friends we’d made on our trip. The day we were leaving Naviti for another island we had a cooking lesson where we learnt to make the traditional Fijian dish, kokonda. It’s like ceviche in that the fish is cured in lemon juice and served cold in coconut milk. Instead of using canned coconut milk though we were shown how to get our own milk fresh from the coconut. By extracting the flesh from the coconut and mashing it together with the juice you end up with fresh coconut milk. We were even shown how to open a coconut with our bare hands, although I probably won’t be trying that at home. The chef from the resort was our teacher. The village where the resort is located is very small and family orientated. They grow and catch all of their own ingredients and rarely import items. The resort was very homely; all the employees were related in some way and the cutest local was a young girl, about the age of 3. She was always running around in just a nappy and she was very inquisitive of the tourists staying at the resort. Korovou will always hold a piece of my heart. It was definitely was one of the best birthday’s I’ve ever had.