Pacific Island Food Review

Chencheni Dinner meal
From Solomon Islands

For islanders, one can only explain how our local dishes are prepared and remembered as a taste of food from the Islands. 

Take this as a local vegetarian cuisine. It is wrapped in banana leaves and baked with the heat of hot stones that act like an outdoor oven. Chencheni is a simply prepared using sliced leaves of slippery cabbage layered with crushed canarium nuts (known to the locals as galip nuts) mixed with water to keep the mixture together. Once baked, the banana leaves are removed leaving the layered cabbage with nut intact and ready to be sliced in pieces. the rich flavour of the nut mixed with the soft cabbage and the slight taste of banana leaves can be tasted. An imitation of this can be done using the spinach leaves and maybe mixed nuts then baked in the oven. Well given that, it is served with sweet potatoes or cassava and the local coral trout but having it with other food is quite okay too.

For those that aren’t keen on vegetarian food, it may not be appealing to have a taste but a try at a healthy meal will never do harm.

Pictures: Courtesy of G.Galo

-Melanie